fopen warning error message

Hi I am trying to open a file which exists remotely(code works), but there may be times when it may not exist, however when I change the url so that it purposely doesn't exist to test this situation I get an error message like the following: Warning: fopen("<remote_url>","r") - No error in test.php on line 5 How can I prevent this error message appearing and let my error checking below deal with it ? Here is my code: if(!$file = fopen("<remote_url>", "r")): echo"could not open remote file"; else: <page code> endif; Many Thanks Ade ------------------------------------- ade@stormbreaker.com -------------------------------------