Are there potential pitfalls to be aware of when checking for file existence in PHP?

One potential pitfall when checking for file existence in PHP is not accounting for symbolic links. When using functions like `file_exists()` or `is_file()`, they may follow symbolic links and return true even if the actual file does not exist. To avoid this, you can use `is_link()` to check if the path is a symbolic link before checking for file existence. 

$file_path = '/path/to/file.txt';

if (!is_link($file_path) && file_exists($file_path)) {
    echo 'File exists.';
} else {
    echo 'File does not exist.';
}

Keywords

file existence PHP error handling file system security

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