What is the difference between fopen() and file_exists() in PHP?

The difference between fopen() and file_exists() in PHP is that fopen() is used to open a file for reading or writing, while file_exists() is used to check if a file exists in a specified path. If you want to open a file for reading or writing, you would use fopen(). If you want to check if a file exists before performing any operations on it, you would use file_exists(). 

// Check if a file exists before opening it for reading
$filename = 'example.txt';

if (file_exists($filename)) {
    $file = fopen($filename, 'r');
    // Perform operations on the file
    fclose($file);
} else {
    echo 'File does not exist.';
}

Keywords

fopen file_exists PHP file handling file checking

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