file_exists

(PHP 4, PHP 5, PHP 7)

Checks whether a file or directory exists

bool file_exists ( string $filename )

Checks whether a file or directory exists.

Parameters:

filename

Path to the file or directory.

On windows, use //computername/share/filename or \\computername\share\filename to check files on network shares.

Returns:

Returns TRUE if the file or directory specified by filename exists; FALSE otherwise.

Note:

This function will return FALSE for symlinks pointing to non-existing files.

Warning

This function returns FALSE for files inaccessible due to safe mode restrictions. However these files still can be included if they are located in safe_mode_include_dir.

Note:

The check is done using the real UID/GID instead of the effective one.

Note: Because PHP's integer type is signed and many platforms use 32bit integers, some filesystem functions may return unexpected results for files which are larger than 2GB.

Exception:

Upon failure, an E_WARNING is emitted.

Notes:

The results of this function are cached. See clearstatcache() for more details.

Examples:

Testing whether a file exists

<?php
$filename = '/path/to/foo.txt';

if (file_exists($filename)) {
    echo "The file $filename exists";
} else {
    echo "The file $filename does not exist";
}
?>