file_exists() and paths

rickman

What does it mean when file_exists('phpfilename.php') where phpfilename.php is the script name, doesn't return 1? It doesn't return anything. If I print file_exists("phpfilename.php"), I get nothing.

Has anyone experienced this before? I'm using PHP 4.3 on Windows XP running under it's version of IIS.

I've come into the problem because I can't get fopen to work either (file doesn't exist issues), so I thought I'd start with file_exists() if for nothing else than to add some additional error checking. Now I'm completely stumped.....

BTW, I'm not trying to open the script file, I'm trying to open a text file for processing. The text file DOES exist, but file_exists() doesn't return 1 no matter which file i use.

Installer

Your subject mentions "paths", but your post doesn't. Are the files you're passing as arguments in the same directory as your script?

If your script line is "print file_exist('file.ext');" and the file doesn't exist the function will return boolean "false", which will be cast for display as "" (empty string), thus you won't see anything. If it does exist the function will return true, which will be cast as "1", and you'll see "1" on your screen. If the file exist but is not in the script's directory you'll need to supply the path, of course, in order to get "true".

To get a display either way, do something like this:

if (file_exists('file.ext')) {
    echo 'true';
} else {
    echo 'false';
}

rickman

Sorry for the confusing subject.

In a call of:

print file_exists('phpfilename.php');

from within phpfilename.php (this file must be in the same directory) I get a return of an empty string (nothing is displayed).

The text file I'm trying to use is also in the same directory as the script file.

One thing I tried is to use the full windows path "c:\dirinfo\filename.txt".

This did work (returned 1), but I'd hardly call that a good solution if my code is to be able to run on any server I put it on.

So what reason would there be for not finding a file unless I specify the full path?

Installer

Check to see if your php.in "open_basedir" is set. If it is, comment it out and see what happens.

rickman

I checked the open_basedir option and it's already commented out.