At the PHAR's stub, you can use the __DIR__ magic constant to get the PHAR file's folder.

With that in mind, you can simply use

is_file(__DIR__ . DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR . $path);

To check for a file's existence outside the PHAR.

You can ONLY do this from the stub, and ONLY if it's a custom stub, as opposed to one generated by Phar::setDefaultStub(). If you need to check for files further down the line, you'll have to make that constant's value available somehow, like a global variable, a custom non-magical constant or a static property or something, which other files then consult with.

EDIT: Actually, you can also use dirname(Phar::running(false)) to get the PHAR's folder from anywhere in the PHAR. That function returns an empty string if you're not within a PHAR, so whether your application is executed as a PHAR or directly, it should work fine, e.g.

$pharFile = Phar::running(false);is_file(('' === $pharFile ? '' : dirname($pharFile) . DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR) . $path)

I meet the same issue today. After several hours digging ... I found the answer.

Can you try the following script first?

if(file_exists(realpath('file.php')));

If the file exist, then the issue is

if you use only the filename without path information, php treat file is related to phar stub. for example:

phar:///a/b/c/file.php

So, you have to use absolute path to manipulate the file, for example:

/home/www/d/e/f/file.php

Hope this help.

Mark

Working with file paths and Phar archives

Working with file paths and Phar archives in PHP can be tricky. The PHP code inside of a Phar file will treat relative paths as being relative to the Phar archive, not relative to the current working directory. Here's a short example:

Say you have the following files:

phar/index.phptest.phpmy.phar

The index.php file is located inside of the phar directory. It is the bootstrap file for the phar archive:

function does_it_exist($file){  return file_exists($file) ? "true" : "false";}

The bootstrap file is executed when the phar file is included from a PHP script. Our bootstrap file will simply cause the function "does_it_exist" to be declared.

Let's try running different code inside of test.php and see what the results are for each run:

//Run 1:require_once 'phar/index.php';  //PHP file$file = __DIR__ . "/index.php"; //absolute pathecho does_it_exist($file);      //prints "false"//Run 2:require_once 'phar/index.php';  //PHP file$file = "index.php";            //relative pathecho does_it_exist($file);      //prints "false"//Run 3:require_once 'my.phar';         //phar file$file = __DIR__ . "/index.php"; //absolute pathecho does_it_exist($file);      //prints "false"//Run 4:require_once 'my.phar';         //phar file$file = "index.php";            //relative pathecho does_it_exist($file);      //prints "true"

Look at Run 4. This code includes the phar file and passes the function a relative path. Relative to the current working directory, index.php does not exist. But relative to the contents of the phar archive, it does exist, which is why it prints "true"!