What are some best practices for securely deleting files in PHP applications to avoid permission-related errors like the one mentioned in the forum thread?

When securely deleting files in PHP applications, it's important to first check if the file exists and if the user has the necessary permissions to delete it. To avoid permission-related errors, you can use the `unlink()` function in combination with `file_exists()` and `is_writable()` functions to ensure the file can be safely deleted.

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

if (file_exists($file) && is_writable($file)) {
    unlink($file);
    echo "File deleted successfully.";
} else {
    echo "Unable to delete file. Please check file permissions.";
}