What is the main issue with using file_exists or is_file to check for the existence of a file in PHP?

The main issue with using file_exists or is_file to check for the existence of a file in PHP is that they return true for directories as well as files. To specifically check for the existence of a file, you can use the is_file function combined with is_readable to ensure that the path is a file and can be read. 

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

if (is_file($file_path) && is_readable($file_path)) {
    echo "File exists and is readable.";
} else {
    echo "File does not exist or is not readable.";
}

Keywords

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