exists()

public function exists(string $path): bool

Description

Checks whether a file or directory exists at the specified path.

Parameters

Parameter	Type	Description
$path	string	The path to the file or directory.

Return Value

Type	Description
bool	Returns true if the file or directory exists, otherwise false.

Example #1

The code sample below demonstrates how to check if a user's profile picture exists before displaying it.

PHP

public function view_profile(): void {
    $user_id = segment(3, 'int');
    
    // Get user record
    $user = $this->db->get_where($user_id, 'users');
    
    if ($user === false) {
        redirect('users/not_found');
    }
    
    // Check if profile picture exists
    $picture_path = 'modules/users/pictures/' . $user->profile_picture;
    
    if ($this->file->exists($picture_path)) {
        $data['picture_url'] = BASE_URL . $picture_path;
    } else {
        // Use default avatar if picture doesn't exist
        $data['picture_url'] = BASE_URL . 'public/images/default_avatar.png';
    }
    
    $data['user'] = $user;
    $this->view('profile', $data);
}

Example #2

The example above shows how to verify a directory exists before attempting to list its contents.

PHP

public function list_user_files(): void {
    $user_id = segment(3, 'int');
    $user_directory = 'modules/files/storage/user_' . $user_id;
    
    // Check if user directory exists
    if ($this->file->exists($user_directory)) {
        $contents = $this->file->list_directory($user_directory);
        $data['files'] = $contents['files'];
        $data['directories'] = $contents['directories'];
    } else {
        // Create directory if it doesn't exist
        $this->file->create_directory($user_directory, 0755);
        $data['files'] = [];
        $data['directories'] = [];
    }
    
    $data['user_id'] = $user_id;
    $this->view('user_files', $data);
}

Example #3

The example above demonstrates how to safely clean up temporary files only if they exist.

PHP

public function cleanup_temp_files(): void {
    $temp_files = [
        'temp/import_data.csv',
        'temp/processing_log.txt',
        'temp/validation_errors.json'
    ];
    
    $deleted_count = 0;
    
    foreach ($temp_files as $file_path) {
        if ($this->file->exists($file_path)) {
            $this->file->delete($file_path);
            $deleted_count++;
        }
    }
    
    echo "Cleaned up {$deleted_count} temporary files";
}

Checking Files vs Directories: The exists() method returns true for both files and directories. If you need to specifically verify that a path is a directory (not a file), use PHP's native is_dir($path) function instead. Similarly, use is_file($path) to confirm a path is specifically a file.