note 45165 rejected from function.file-exists by sp

Note Submitter: james at vantslot dot net ---- How do you test if a file exists if it has a "#" sign in it? Unfortunately I've got no control over what characters go into the name of a file and need to test if it exists. file_exists($filename) fails if the filename contains a "#" sign. Any ideas how to test the existence of the file and then be able to read it? I've tried wrapping the base filename in quotes but that doesn't seem to work either.