unlink/file_exists and file not found

Question

I have this code in my application, often run in race condition by severals users of my application

clearstatcache(TRUE, $filepath);
if(file_exists($filepath)) unlink($filepath);

But, for this line of code, I still have severals errors each day like

unlink(file): No such file or directory

Server run Apache 2.2 and PHP 5.3.3. I know race problem, but think @ operator is just evil. I have first tried without any parameter for clearstatcache(), with the same error. How can I do it the correct way?

Answer 1

As said in comment, my need is to be sure I have deleted the file, not to know witch process delete it, so

@unlink($filepath);
clearstatcache(TRUE, $filepath);
if(file_exists($filepath)) throw new Exception('file not deleted : ' . $filepath);

may be a better way.

Thanks a lot for your help, it's so much easier to think another way to do it with severals comments.