Bug #76406 [NEW]: file_exists() misleading error message and unexpected NULL return value

From: salsi at icosaedro dot it Operating system: PHP version: Irrelevant Package: Filesystem function related Bug Type: Bug Bug description:file_exists() misleading error message and unexpected NULL return value Description: ------------ If the string contains simply NUL, file_exists() gives a misleading error message and an unexpected return value: $ php -r "var_export(file_exists(\"\\x00\"));" PHP Warning: file_exists() expects parameter 1 to be a valid path, string given in Command line code on line 1 NULL Three issues here: Issue 1. "file_exists() expects parameter 1 to be a valid path": should not complain about invalid paths, as it is just its purpose to check for valid paths! Issue 2. "string given": just the type of data the function is expecting to get; then what's the issue? Issue 3. NULL is an undocumented returned value; only FALSE and TRUE expected. In my opinion: - This function should always return only either TRUE or FALSE depending on the given argument: if the argument can be successfully detected being a local file, a remote file or resource or whatever, it should return TRUE, FALSE otherwise. - No errors should ever be triggered because testing for valid paths is just the purpose of the function, so basically this function should only tell if the argument is or is not a valid file, resource, etc. An error could possibly be triggered if and only if the argument is something badly wrong like an object or an array, that may indicate an internal program failure. Folks used to map errors into exceptions are quite sensitive to this argument... - If an error really worth to be reported, it should tell the argument cannot be parsed as a valid file, URL or resource path or something like that. And in this case too, only either FALSE or TRUE should be returned. Or, the manual page should be fixed accordingly. -- Edit bug report at https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=76406&edit=1 -- Try a snapshot (PHP 5.4): https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=76406&r=trysnapshot54 Try a snapshot (PHP 5.5): https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=76406&r=trysnapshot55 Try a snapshot (trunk): https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=76406&r=trysnapshottrunk Fixed in SVN: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=76406&r=fixed Fixed in release: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=76406&r=alreadyfixed Need backtrace: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=76406&r=needtrace Need Reproduce Script: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=76406&r=needscript Try newer version: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=76406&r=oldversion Not developer issue: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=76406&r=support Expected behavior: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=76406&r=notwrong Not enough info: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=76406&r=notenoughinfo Submitted twice: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=76406&r=submittedtwice register_globals: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=76406&r=globals PHP 4 support discontinued: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=76406&r=php4 Daylight Savings: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=76406&r=dst IIS Stability: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=76406&r=isapi Install GNU Sed: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=76406&r=gnused Floating point limitations: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=76406&r=float No Zend Extensions: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=76406&r=nozend MySQL Configuration Error: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=76406&r=mysqlcfg