Php File_exists not working properly

Question

**I am using xampp for this project.

Hi all having a small problem with an inventory I am building. When I delete an object from the database I want to delete the picture that I linked to it. I do this by giving the images the same ID as the product so when Im deleting the item I can just look up the image to delete via its id.

The problem is when I delete the object the image is not deleted. File_exists keeps returning false. Any help would be great.

if(isset($_GET["yesdelete"])){

$id_to_delete = $_GET["yesdelete"];
$sql = mysqli_query($link,"DELETE FROM products WHERE id = $id_to_delete") or die (mysqli_error());

$pictodelete=("../Images/$id_to_delete.jpg");

if(file_exists($pictodelete)){
unlink($pictodelete);
}

header("location: inventory_list.php");
exit();
}

Answer 1

Try using DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR instead of '/' as separator. Windows uses a different separator for file system paths (backslash) than Linux systems.

I would also suggest to recheck the filename, sometimes there can be some kind of spelling mistake or case sensitive issues.

Answer 2

Use, the exact physical path for the file.

For that, use following:

$_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'];

And using this, get the exact path:

eg

$pictodelete = $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . "/Images/" . $id_to_delete.".jpg";

Hope this works.

Answer 3

I found the answer and I want to thank everyone that helped with the problem. I think my filename had a space beforehand that was causing it to not find the file, but im only a beginner at php so i could be wrong but this solved my problem.

$id_delete = preg_replace('#[^0-9]#i','',$_GET["yesdelete"]); <-------- added this

$pictodelete = ("../Images/$id_delete.jpg");
if(file_exists($pictodelete)){
unlink($pictodelete);
}

Answer 4

I have faced a similar situation and the problem was the fact that my server was converting my file's name into capital letter so i did

if(file_exists(strtolower(trim($myimagefile)))==true)

and it worked