file_exists() is too slow in PHP. Can anyone suggest a faster alternative?

Question

When displaying images on our website, we check if the file exists with a call to file_exists(). We fall back to a dummy image if the file was missing.

Howe

Answer 1

file_exists() should be a very inexpensive operation. Note too that file_exists builds its own cache to help with performance.

See: http://php.net/manual/en/function.file-exists.php