The blank identifier “_” is a special anonymous identifier. When used in an assignment, like this case, it provides a way to explicitly ignore right-hand side values. So, the developer has decided to ignore/discard the error returned from this method call.
A few reasons why they may have done this (based on a quick glance at the method call and context, my guess is 3 or 4):
- The method call is guaranteed to succeed in this context.
- The error is already handled sufficiently within the method call; no reason to handle it again.
- The error doesn’t matter (eg the relevant process is going to end anyway and the outcome will be the same as if the method call has succeeded without error).
- The developer was in a hurry to get something working, ignored the error to save time, then failed to come back and handle the error.