php file_exists() only works once in the same function - php

I have a php function that renames two separate image files from a temporary to permanent path after first confirming that the temporary path exists.
When it checks for the fist file it works fine but, for some reason, the second file never passes the if(file_exists()) even though I can confirm with 100% certainty that the file path being checked does, in fact, exist.
The image files have different names but the codes are otherwise structured exactly the same so I can't see why one would work and the other wouldn't.
if(file_exists('temp/'.strtolower($option['image1']))){
$path1 = 'images/'.strtolower($option['image1']); // upload directory
$tmp1 = 'temp/'.strtolower($option['image1']);
if(rename($tmp1, $path1)){
$error = 0;
}else{
$error = 4;
}
}
if(file_exists('temp/'.strtolower($option['image2']))){
$path2 = 'images/'.strtolower($option['image2']); // upload directory
$tmp2 = 'temp/'.strtolower($option['image2']);
if(rename($tmp2, $path2)){
$error = 0;
}else{
$error = 5;
}
}
Is there an issue with calling file_exists() twice? How else can I check for both paths?
Edit
As per Marco-A's suggestion, I added clearstatcache(); between the two if/then blocks and it worked like a charm.

The only two possibilities (if you're absolutely sure the file path exists) I'm seeing are either 1.) a stat cache problem (you can clear the cache with clearstatcache) or 2.) a permission issue. Consider this:
$ touch /tmp/locked/file
$ php is_file_test.php
$ bool(true)
$ chmod -x /tmp/locked
$ php is_file_test.php
$ bool(false)
So it might be, that the parent directory of that file doesn't have the x (executable) permission bit set. This prevents any process from iterating and accessing the directory's content.

The uploaded file names can have uppercase characters. If you use strtolower in the file_exists function, you probably wouldn't be looking for the original file path.
if(file_exists('temp/' . strtolower($option['image']))){
// ...
}
Should be changed to:
if(file_exists('temp/' . $option['image'])){
// ...
}

Related

file_exists and paths that include relative paths ("/../")

When I use file_get_contents on a path like /a/path/to/a/../file.php, it gets the content just fine. If I call file_exists first (or is_file or realpath), the return values indicate that the file does not exist. What seems to be the issue?
Edit: Here is some additional information condensed from comments to answers:
I am running Mac OS X 10.9 with php 5.5.6, so safe mode should not be an issue (it was removed in version 5.4)
I tried clearing the file cash by calling clearstatcache(true, $dir1)
The file in question is 362 bytes in size, but I reproduced this issue with several different files in a medley of locations.
open_basedir is commented out in the php.ini
The file is local (the first file I tried was in the same directory as the script)
The issue exists in the command line (phpUnit) and in the browser.
The permissions on the file in questions are -rwxrwxrwx (I sudo-chmod-777ed the file)
This is a code snippet that creates the behavior:
$dir1 = '/a/path/to/a/../file.php';
$dir2 = '/a/path/to/file.php';
echo "File content dir1:\n";
echo file_get_contents($dir1);
echo "\ndir1 exists: ".(int)file_exists($dir1);
echo "\n\nFile content dir2:\n";
echo file_get_contents($dir2);
echo "\ndir2 exists: ".(int)file_exists($dir2);
the output is:
File content dir1:
The actual content of the file. I promise!
dir1 exists: 0
File content dir2:
The actual content of the file. I promise!
dir2 exists: 1
It sounds like you have safe mode turned on and are attempting to access a file that PHP would consider unsafe when running in safe mode. From the manual:
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.
EDIT: You can also reproduce this behavior if /a/path/to/a/ is not a real path. For example:
<?php
$dir1 = '/realDir/realDir2/filetoinclude.php';
echo "File content dir1:\n";
echo file_get_contents($dir1); // outputs file contents
echo "\ndir1 exists: ".(int)file_exists($dir1); // outputs 1
$dir2 = '/realDir/realDir2/realDir3/../filetoinclude.php';
echo "\n\nFile content dir2:\n";
echo file_get_contents($dir2); // outputs file contents
echo "\ndir2 exists: ".(int)file_exists($dir2); // outputs 1
$dir3 = '/realDir/realDir2/NotARealDirectory/../filetoinclude.php';
echo "\n\nFile content dir3:\n";
echo file_get_contents($dir3); // outputs file contents
echo "\ndir3 exists: ".(int)file_exists($dir3); // outputs 0
This is because file_exists needs to traverse the entire path, literally, so it looks for the missing directory and fails. I'm not sure exactly what file_get_contents does that is different, and I can't find much on Google, but it clearly does some parsing of the path that is different from what file_exists does.
I am providing the workaround that I developed with a regex, if others have this same issue. I hate to be using this hack, and I still don't understand why I am having this issue, but hopefully someone will come up with an actual solution.
Before calling file_exists I now call this function:
function resolve($path) {
$regex = "/(.?)(\/[^\/]*\/\.\.)(.*)/";
$result = preg_replace($regex, "$1$3", $path);
if ($result != $path) {
$result = resolve($result);
}
return $result;
}

PHP - Creating .txt document in Ubuntu

I am having trouble using fopen() to create a text document for later use as a cookie file.
I have read the documentation for this function, but to no avail.
Notes:
Ubuntu
read / writable ("w+")
I have tried several storage locations including:
/home/jack/Desktop/cookie
/var/www/cookie
/home/jack/Documents/cookie
PHP
echo "debug";
echo "\r\n";
$cookie = fopen("/home/jack/Documents/cookie", "w+");
fclose($cookie);
if(!file_exists($cookie) || !is_writable($cookie))
{
if(!file_exists($cookie))
{
echo 'Cookie file does not exist.';
}
if(!is_writable($cookie))
{
echo 'Cookie file is not writable.';
}
exit;
}
Result
file is not created
Output to browser: debug Cookie file does not exist.Cookie file is not writable.
Other Fun Facts
I have tried using fopen(realpath("/home/jack/Documents/cookie"), "w+")
echo "\r\n" gives a space. Why not a newline?
I believe the problem must be something to do with my permissions to create the file, but I have no problem "right-click" creating the text document on the Desktop.
THIS WORKS THIS WORKS THIS WORKS THIS WORKS THIS WORKS THIS WORKS THIS WORKS
echo "debug";
echo "\n";
$jack = "jack";
$cookie = "/home/jack/Documents/cookie";
touch($cookie);
chmod($cookie, 0760);
if(!file_exists($cookie) || !is_writable($cookie))
{
if(!file_exists($cookie))
{
echo 'Cookie file does not exist.';
}
if(!is_writable($cookie))
{
echo 'Cookie file is not writable.';
}
exit;
}
fclose($cookie);
THIS WORKS THIS WORKS THIS WORKS THIS WORKS THIS WORKS THIS WORKS THIS WORKS
Instead of fopen()..
touch() to create
chmod() for permissions
I also added user name jack to www-data group.
chmod($path, 0760) group read / write
Reference
chmod() octal values here.
Look at the documentation for file_exists again. It does not take a file handle as an argument, it takes a string filename. The same is true for is_writable. Even if it did, you are opening the file handle and then immediately closing it, so I'm not sure why you're trying to use the file pointer at all after it's been closed.
You may be correct in that you have improper permissions set, but I would start here, first.
Also, if you're only trying to create the file, you may look into using the touch method, instead:
if( touch( $filename ) ) {
// It worked!
} else {
// It didn't work...
}
The web server is not executing as your user. touch /home/jack/Documents/cookie && chmod 777 /home/jack/Documents/cookie to allow the web server user to access the file.
Note this is BAD in production environments.
It looks like a permission issue. What user is PHP running as? It's likely running as www-data or something similar. You should make sure that the folders you are trying to write to are writable by either the user or group that PHP is running as. If you created those folders while logged in a jack, they probably belong to jack:jack and are not accessible by www-data:www-data.
You can also add jack to the www-data group, to make things a bit easier for development.

PHP Count through different directories and see which ones have 0 files in them

I have the following folder structure:
images/photo-gallery/2e/
72/
rk/
u3/
va/
yk/
... and so on. Basically, each time an image is uploaded it hashes the name and then creates a folder with the first two letters. So inside of 2e is 2e0gpw1p.jpg
Here's the thing... if I delete an image, it will delete the file but it will keep the folder that it's in. Now when I have a TON of images uploaded, that will be fine since a lot of images will share the same folder.. but until then, I will end up having a bunch of empty directories.
What I want to do is search through the photo-gallery folder and go through each directory and see which folders are empty.. if there are any empty folders then it will remove it.
I know how to do that for a single directory, like the 2e folder. But how would I do it for all the folders inside the photo-gallery folder?
The PHP function rmdir() will throw a warning if the directory is not empty, so you can use it on non-empty directories without risking deleting them. Combine that with scandir() and array_slice (to remove . and ..), and you can do this:
foreach(array_slice(scandir('images/photo-gallery'),2) as $dir) {
#rmdir('images/photo-gallery/' . $dir); // use # to silence the warning
}
while you could do with with php, i'm inclined to use the os for such a task. Of course you can call the below with php
find <parent-dir> -depth -type d -empty -exec rmdir -v {} \;
PLEASE READ THIS WARNING I DID NOT TEST BUT HAVE USED SIMILAR CODE DOZENS OF TIMES. FAMILURIZE YOURSELF WITH THIS AND DO NOT USE IF YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT IT IS DOING THIS COULD POTENTIALLY WIPE YOUR SITE FROM THE SERVER.
EDIT BACKUP EVERYTHING BEFORE TRYING THIS YOUR FIRST TIME THE PATH IS VERY VERY IMPORTANT!
Ok with that said this is quite easy :)
<?php
function recursiveDelete($path){
$ignore = array(
'cgi-bin',
'.',
'..'
); // Directories to ignore
$dh = opendir($path); // Open the directory
while(false !== ($file = readdir($dh))){ // Loop through the directory
if(!in_array($file, $ignore)){ // Check that this file is not to be ignored
if(is_dir($path."/".$file)){ // Its a directory, keep going
if(!iterator_count(new DirectoryIterator($path."/".$file)))
rmdir($path."/".$file); // its empty delete it
} else {
recursiveDelete($path."/".$file);// Recursive call to self
}
}
}
}
closedir($dh); // All Done close the directory
}
// WARNING IMPROPERLY USED YOU CAN DUMP YOUR ENTIRE SERVER USE WITH CAUTION!!!!
// I WILL NOT BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR MISUSE
recursiveDelete('/some/directoy/path/to/your/gallery');
?>

file_exists() returns false, but the file DOES exist

I'm having a very weird issue with file_exists(). I'm using this function to check if 2 different files in the same folders do exist. I've double-checked, they BOTH do exist.
echo $relative . $url['path'] . '/' . $path['filename'] . '.jpg';
Result: ../../images/example/001-001.jpg
echo $relative . $url['path'] . '/' . $path['filename'] . '.' . $path['extension'];
Result: ../../images/example/001-001.PNG
Now let's use file_exists() on these:
var_dump(file_exists($relative . $url['path'] . '/' . $path['filename'] . '.jpg'));
Result: bool(false)
var_dump(file_exists($relative . $url['path'] . '/' . $path['filename'] . '.' . $path['extension']));
Result: bool(true)
I don't get it - both of these files do exist. I'm running Windows, so it's not related to a case-sensitive issue. Safe Mode is off.
What might be worth mentioning though is that the .png one is uploaded by a user via FTP, while the .jpg one is created using a script. But as far as I know, that shouldn't make a difference.
Any tips?
Thanks
file_exists() just doesn't work with HTTP addresses.
It only supports filesystem paths (and FTP, if you're using PHP5.)
Please note:
Works :
if (file_exists($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT']."/folder/test.txt")
echo "file exists";
Does not work:
if (file_exists("www.mysite.com/folder/test.txt")
echo "file exists";
Results of the file_exists() are cached, so try using clearstatcache(). If that not helped, recheck names - they might be similar, but not same.
I found that what works for me to check if a file exists (relative to the current php file it is being executed from) is this piece of code:
$filename = 'myfile.jpg';
$file_path_and_name = dirname(__FILE__) . DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR . "{$filename}";
if ( file_exists($file_path_and_name) ){
// file exists. Do some magic...
} else {
// file does not exists...
}
Just my $.02: I just had this problem and it was due to a space at the end of the file name. It's not always a path problem - although that is the first thing I check - always. I could cut and paste the file name into a shell window using the ls -l command and of course that locates the file because the command line will ignore the space where as file_exists does not. Very frustrating indeed and nearly impossible to locate were it not for StackOverflow.
HINT: When outputting debug statements enclose values with delimiters () or [] and that will show a space pretty clearly. And always remember to trim your input.
It's because of safe mode. You can turn it off or include the directory in safe_mode_include_dir. Or change file ownership / permissions for those files.
php.net: file_exists()
php.net: safe mode
Try using DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR instead of '/' as separator. Windows uses a different separator for file system paths (backslash) than Linux and Unix systems.
A very simple trick is here that worked for me.
When I write following line, than it returns false.
if(file_exists('/my-dreams-files/'.$_GET['article'].'.html'))
And when I write with removing URL starting slash, then it returns true.
if(file_exists('my-dreams-files/'.$_GET['article'].'.html'))
I have a new reason this happens - I am using PHP inside a Docker container with a mounted volume for the codebase which resides on my local host machine.
I was getting file_exists == FALSE (inside Composer autoload), but if I copied the filepath into terminal - it did exist! I tried the clearstatche(), checked safe-mode was OFF.
Then I remembered the Docker volume mapping: the absolute path on my local host machine certainly doesn't exist inside the Docker container - which is PHP's perspective on the world.
(I keep forgetting I'm using Docker, because I've made shell functions which wrap the docker run commands so nicely...)
It can also be a permission problem on one of the parent folders or the file itself.
Try to open a session as the user running your webserver and cd into it. The folder must be accessible by this user and the file must be readable.
If not, php will return that the file doesn't exist.
have you tried manual entry. also your two extensions seem to be in different case
var_dump(file_exists('../../images/example/001-001.jpg'));
var_dump(file_exists('../../images/example/001-001.PNG'));
A custom_file_exists() function inspired by #Timur, #Brian, #Doug and #Shahar previous answers:
function custom_file_exists($file_path=''){
$file_exists=false;
//clear cached results
//clearstatcache();
//trim path
$file_dir=trim(dirname($file_path));
//normalize path separator
$file_dir=str_replace('/',DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR,$file_dir).DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR;
//trim file name
$file_name=trim(basename($file_path));
//rebuild path
$file_path=$file_dir."{$file_name}";
//If you simply want to check that some file (not directory) exists,
//and concerned about performance, try is_file() instead.
//It seems like is_file() is almost 2x faster when a file exists
//and about the same when it doesn't.
$file_exists=is_file($file_path);
//$file_exists=file_exists($file_path);
return $file_exists;
}
This answer may be a bit hacky, but its been working for me -
$file = 'path/to/file.jpg';
$file = $_SERVER['REQUEST_SCHEME'].'://'.$_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'].'/'.$file;
$file_headers = #get_headers($file);
if($file_headers[0] == 'HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found') {
$exists = false;
}else{
$exists = true;
}
apparently $_SERVER['REQUEST_SCHEME'] is a bit dicey to use with IIS 7.0 + PHP 5.3 so you could probably look for a better way to add in the protocol.
I found this answer here http://php.net/manual/en/function.file-exists.php#75064
I spent the last two hours wondering what was wrong with my if statement: file_exists($file) was returning false, however I could call include($file) with no problem.
It turns out that I didn't realize that the php include_path value I had set in the .htaccess file didn't carry over to file_exists, is_file, etc.
Thus:
<?PHP
// .htaccess php_value include_path '/home/user/public_html/';
// includes lies in /home/user/public_html/includes/
//doesn't work, file_exists returns false
if ( file_exists('includes/config.php') )
{
include('includes/config.php');
}
//does work, file_exists returns true
if ( file_exists('/home/user/public_html/includes/config.php') )
{
include('includes/config.php');
}
?>
Just goes to show that "shortcuts for simplicity" like setting the include_path in .htaccess can just cause more grief in the long run.
In my case, the problem was a misconception of how file_exists() behaves with symbolic links and .. ("dotdot" or double period) parent dir references. In that regard, it differs from functions like require, include or even mkdir().
Given this directory structure:
/home/me/work/example/
www/
/var/www/example.local/
tmp/
public_html -> /home/me/work/example/www/
file_exists('/var/www/example.local/public_html/../tmp/'); would return FALSE even though the subdir exists as we see, because the function traversed up into /home/me/work/example/ which does not have that subdir.
For this reason, I have created this function:
/**
* Resolve any ".." ("dotdots" or double periods) in a given path.
*
* This is especially useful for avoiding the confusing behavior `file_exists()`
* shows with symbolic links.
*
* #param string $path
*
* #return string
*/
function resolve_dotdots( string $path ) {
if (empty($path)) {
return $path;
}
$source = array_reverse(explode(DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR, $path));
$balance = 0;
$parts = array();
// going backwards through the path, keep track of the dotdots and "work
// them off" by skipping a part. Only take over the respective part if the
// balance is at zero.
foreach ($source as $part) {
if ($part === '..') {
$balance++;
} else if ($balance > 0) {
$balance--;
} else {
array_push($parts, $part);
}
}
// special case: path begins with too many dotdots, references "outside
// knowledge".
if ($balance > 0) {
for ($i = 0; $i < $balance; $i++) {
array_push($parts, '..');
}
}
$parts = array_reverse($parts);
return implode(DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR, $parts);
}
I just encountered this same problem and I solved it in a mysterious way. After inserting a a filepath I copied from Windows File explorer. file_exists() keeps returning false continuously, but if I copy same path from VSCode editor it works perfectly.
After dumping variables with var_dump($path); I noticed something mysterious.
For path I copied from file explorer it shows length 94.
For path I copied from VSCode Editor it shows length 88.
Both path look same length on my code Editor.
My suggestion: if string contain hidden characters, it may fail and not work.

I made an upload script in PHP. How do I avoid overwriting files?

I've made an image upload script using the move_uploaded_file function. This function seems to overwrite any preexisting file with the new one. So, I need to check if the target location already has a file. If it does then I need to append something to the filename(before the extension so that the file name is still valid) so the filename is unique. I'd like to have the change be minimal instead of something like appending the datetime, if possible.
How can I do this with PHP?
When uploading files I will nearly always rename them. Typically there will be some kind of database record for that file. I use the ID of that to guarantee uniqueness of the file. Sometimes I'll even store what the client's original filename was in the database too but I'll never keep it or the temporary name because there is no guarantee that information is good, that your OS will support it or that it's unique (which is your issue).
So just rename it to some scheme of your own devising. That's my advice.
If you don't have any database reference, then you could use file_exists() for this but there's no guarantee that between the time of checking if something exists and moving it that something else won't use that same filename that you'll then overwrite. This is a classic race condition.
http://us3.php.net/manual/en/function.file-exists.php
Don't use file_exists() for the reason that it returns true (on *nix systems at least, since directories are specialized files) if the value is a directory. Use is_file() instead.
For example, say something fails and you have a string like:
$path = "/path/to/file/" . $file; // Assuming $file is an empty value, if something failed for example
if ( true === file_exists($path) ) { echo "This returns true"; }
if ( true === is_file($path) ) { echo "You will not read this"; }
It's caused a few problems in the past for me, so I always use is_file() rather than file_exists().
I use date and time functions to generate a random file name based on the time of upload.
Let's assume you are submitting a file from a form where you have an input named incomingfile like this:
<input type="file" id="incomingfile" name="incomingfile" />
First of all I use to "depure" the filename and copy it from the default temporary directory to a temporary directory. This is necessary to deal with special characters. I had troubles when I didn't adopt this practice.
$new_depured_filename = strtolower(preg_replace('/[^a-zA-Z0-9_ -.]/s', '_', $_FILES["incomingfile"]["name"]));
copy($_FILES["incomingfile"]["tmp_name"], 'my_temp_directory/'.$new_depured_filename);
With the following piece of code I check if the file exists, if so, I find a new name and finally copy it. For example if I want to write a file called myimage.jpg and it already exists I rename the pending file to myimage__000.jpg. If this exists as well I rename the pending file to myimage__001.jpg and so on until I find a non-existing filename.
$i=0; // A counter for the tail to append to the filename
$new_filename = $new_depured_filename;
$new_filepath='myfiles/music/'.$new_filename;
while(file_exists($new_filepath)) {
$tail = str_pad((string) $i, 3, "0", STR_PAD_LEFT); // Converts the integer in $i to a string of 3 characters with left zero fill.
$fileinfos = pathinfo($new_filepath); // Gathers some infos about the file
if($i>0) { // If we aren't at the first while cycle (where you have the filename without any added strings) then delete the tail (like "__000") from the filename to add another one later (otherwise you'd have filenames like myfile__000__001__002__003.jpg)
$previous_tail = str_pad((string) $i-1, 3, "0", STR_PAD_LEFT);
$new_filename = str_replace('__'.$previous_tail,"",$new_filename);
}
$new_filename = str_replace('.'.$fileinfos['extension'],"",$new_filename); // Deletes the extension
$new_filename = $new_filename.'__'.$tail.'.'.$fileinfos['extension']; // Append our tail and the extension
$new_filepath = 'myfiles/music/'.$new_filename; // Crea il nuovo percorso
$i++;
}
copy('my_temp_directory/'.$new_depured_filename, $new_filepath); // Finally we copy the file to its destination directory
unlink('my_temp_directory/'.$new_depured_filename); // and delete the temporary one
Used functions:
strtolower
preg_replace
copy
file_exists
str_pad
pathinfo
str_replace
unlink
To check if a file exists, you can use the file_exists function.
To cut the filename, you can use the pathinfo function.
I use
$file_name = time() . "_" . $uploaded_file_name;

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