PHP: fopen error handling

Question

I do fetch a file with

$fp = fopen(\'uploads/Team/img/\'.$team_id.\'.png\', \"rb\");
$str = stream_get_contents($fp);
fclose($fp);

and then the

Answer 1

Generically - This is probably the best way to do file-io in php (as mentioned by @Cendak here)

$fileName = 'uploads/Team/img/'.$team_id.'.png';
if ( file_exists($fileName) && ($fp = fopen($fileName, "rb"))!==false ){
    $str = stream_get_contents($fp);
    fclose($fp);
    // send success JSON    
}else{
    // send an error message if you can  
}

But it does not work with PHP 7.3, these modifications do,

if(file_exists($filename) && ($fp = fopen($filename,"r") !== false)){
        $fp = fopen($filename,"r");
        $filedata = fread($fp,filesize($filename));
        fclose($fp);
}else{
        $filedata = "default-string";
}