An I missing something here?

I hate having to do this... but...

The code: 

$_code = function($_a)
  {
   //$_a: string; value to assign hard coded record
   $_target = 'php/testSample.php';
   if(!file_exists($_target));
     {
      return ['error'=>true, 'value'=>implode("\n", scandir(getcwd().'/php')) ]; //$_target.' not found'];
     }

//....
}:


The result printed in html page:

Set jsTest Value: 
.
..
L60Set.php
asyncSampler.php
asyncSamplerClass.php
index.php
jsTest.php
labHost.php
procList.php
scratch.php
testSample.php

As you can see at the bottom: testSample.php 
Why i is the code: !file_exists($_target) coming up
true (not finding the file).

Thank you for time and attention
JK