How can one effectively debug PHP scripts to identify issues like empty output from file_get_contents?

Issue: If the file_get_contents function returns empty output, it could be due to various reasons such as incorrect file path, permissions, or network issues. To debug this, you can check if the file exists, verify its permissions, and handle any potential errors that may occur during the file retrieval process. Code snippet:

$file = 'example.txt';

if (file_exists($file)) {
    if (is_readable($file)) {
        $content = file_get_contents($file);
        if ($content === false) {
            echo "Error reading file.";
        } else {
            echo $content;
        }
    } else {
        echo "File is not readable.";
    }
} else {
    echo "File does not exist.";
}