having problems with the way PHP handles a long filename containing "@'s" e.g. @P@@@@@@80@@XXX_XXX@FILENAME.TXT

the '@' in this case is a delimiter, only the four fields listed above may appear in the filename but the first ('P' in this case) is optional.  if the first field is empty the system returns:

"stat failed for @@@@@@@80@@XXX_XXX@FILENAME.TXT (errno=2 - No such file or directory)"

if the 'P' is there, there is no problem.  i tried placing the path/filename in quotes, escaping all the "@'s" with "\@'s".

PHP just will not handle the filename if the 'P' is missing, can't use file_exists(), filemtime(), filesize(), fopen(), i stopped testing when none of these worked.