How can I check if a file exists on a remote server using PHP?

Question

How can I check if a specific file exists on a remote server using PHP via FTP connections?

Answer 1

A general solution would be to:

1. Login using ftp_connect

2. Navigate to the relevant directory via ftp_chdir

3. Get the remote file list via ftp_nlist or ftp_rawlist

4. Use in_array to see if the file was present in the array returned by ftp_rawlist

That said, you could potentially simply use file_exists if you have the relevant URL wrappers available. (See the PHP FTP and FTPS protocols and wrappers manual page for more information.)