file_exists() acting weird

Question

I'm trying to pull some data out of a csv file but I'm stuck because file_exists() says the file doesn't exist when used with get_template_directory_uri().

This is the short code:

function getPeopleNumber() {
    $csv = get_template_directory_uri().'/report/report.csv';
    $delimiter=',';
    if(!file_exists($csv) || !is_readable($csv)) {
        return FALSE;
    }
    $header = NULL;
    $data = array();
    if (($handle = fopen($csv, 'r')) !== FALSE) {
        while (($row = fgetcsv($handle, 1000, $delimiter)) !== FALSE) {
            if(!$header) {
                $header = $row;
            }
            else $data[] = array_combine($header, $row);
        }
        fclose($handle);
    }
    return $csv;
}

If I echo $csv there's the complete (and correct) path.

But still the function returns FALSE. What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

You are using get_template_directory_uri(), that's URL, not PATH.

Instead use get_template_directory(), that'll return PATH. Like:

$csv = get_template_directory() . '/report/report.csv';