How can the code snippet be modified to ensure proper functionality and avoid errors?

The code snippet needs to check if the file exists before attempting to delete it to avoid errors. This can be done using the `file_exists()` function in PHP. By adding this check, we can ensure that the file is present before trying to delete it.

$file = "example.txt";

if (file_exists($file)) {
    unlink($file);
    echo "File deleted successfully.";
} else {
    echo "File does not exist.";
}