include/include_once php_check_syntax() / E_PARSE errors

Hello all, Recently I had some problems with include/include_once. This is the scenario: My application uses only classes loaded through a centered __autoload() function (no "require/include" anywere in the scripts, but in __autoload() itself). Now, diverse libraries use diverse extensions. For instance, Smarty class is declared in Smarty.class.php. And many of my classes uses a simple .php extension. So, __autload has to *try* include_once's. Something like that: function __autoload($className) { include_once("${className}.php"); if(class_exists($className, false)) return; include_once("${className}.class.php"); if(class_exists($className, false)) return; die("class not found: $className"); } Then, loading Smarty would generate a warning message because the first include_once tries to load Smarty.php (wich doesn't exists). Since those warning messages are common, naturaly I use @include_once statements. But, as soon as I'm writing scripts, and one of the classes included generates an E_PARSE error, I get a blank result in my browser, because @ supress the messages. Having explained the problem, I would like to know: 1: Is there an elegant way to resolve this? 2: What happened to php_check_syntax? 3: What was the final word about include() behavior regarding E_PARSE error? Reading and searching the bug database, I read some posts that seemed to indicate that include() should *not* halt on E_PARSE errors, but then, php5 does halt the execution. 4: Halting the execution on E_PARSE error generated through an include() is a coherent/expected behavior? (it doesn't seem to me). 5: Why? (depending on the answer to that question, I'll head to bugs.php.net). Thanks, Thiago