I have a function to check if a file exists via jQuery which makes a call to a PHP script which I'll use when changing certain images at the click of a button on my index page.
jQuery function:
function fileExists(path){
$.getJSON("/ajax/fileExists.php",{ path: path },
function (data){
return data.path;
});
}
fileExists.php:
$path=$_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'].'/packs'.$_GET['path'];
if(file_exists($path)){
echo json_encode(TRUE);
}else{
echo json_encode(FALSE);
}
I'm worried about people using this script to list the contents of my server or files which I may not want them to know about so I've used DOCUMENT_ROOT and /packs to try to limit calls to that directory but I think people can simply use ../ within the supplied path to check alternatives.
What is the best way to make this safe, ideally limit it to /packs, and are there any other concerns I should worry about?
Edit: an example call in javascript/jQuery:
if( fileExists('/index.php') ){
alert('Exists');
}else{
alert('Doesn\'t exist');
}