function file_exists does not work

Question

In my webroot, i have a file called exists.php in which is this code to check if a file exists:

$filename = 'http://www.domain.nl/contact.php';
if (file_exists($filename))
    {
        echo "Document ".$filename." found...<br><br><br>";
    }
    else
    {
        echo "Document ".$filename." not found...<br><br><br>";
    };

The file contact.php DOES exist but when calling exists.php he echoes: Document not found
When changing code to this:

$filename = 'contact.php';
if (file_exists($filename))
    {
        echo "Document ".$filename." found...<br><br><br>";
    }
    else
    {
        echo "Document ".$filename." not found...<br><br><br>";
    };

Then it echoes: Document found.

Why does this not work with an absolute path?

Read the manual http://www.php.net//manual/en/function.file-exists.php — Funk Forty Niner, Jun 15 '14 at 17:44
A possible solution is do a http request (maybe using curl) and check if http status code is != 404 ... — The Mask, Jun 15 '14 at 17:53

Mark Baker · Accepted Answer · 2014-06-15T18:07:19.323

3

file_exists() only works on stream wrappers that support the stat function.

These include:

file://
ftp://
php://memory
php://temp
phar://
ssh2.sftp
rar://

http:// is not supported

edited Jun 15 '14 at 18:07

answered Jun 15 '14 at 17:46

Mark Baker

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You forgot `ftp://` (since PHP 5.0). – Gumbo Jun 15 '14 at 17:56
1

actually php://temp and php://memory don't work. Not that they can't be stated, but the way their abstractions work there is nothing to stat unless the file handle is around. So while file functions that need 'stat' that take in file handles will work. The ones that take paths like file_exists will not. – cythrawll Dec 15 '16 at 19:53

function file_exists does not work

1 Answers1