function file_exists does not work

Question

In my webroot, i have a file called exists.php in which is this code to check if a file exists:

$filename = 'http://www.domain.nl/contact.php';
if (file_exists($filename))
    {
        echo "Document ".$filename." found...<br><br><br>";
    }
    else
    {
        echo "Document ".$filename." not found...<br><br><br>";
    };

The file contact.php DOES exist but when calling exists.php he echoes: Document not found
When changing code to this:

$filename = 'contact.php';
if (file_exists($filename))
    {
        echo "Document ".$filename." found...<br><br><br>";
    }
    else
    {
        echo "Document ".$filename." not found...<br><br><br>";
    }; 

Then it echoes: Document found.

Why does this not work with an absolute path?

Answer 1

file_exists() only works on stream wrappers that support the stat function.

These include:

• file://
• ftp://
• php://memory
• php://temp
• phar://
• ssh2.sftp
• rar://

http:// is not supported