Question

Is there a way to check if class exists within a file without including/requiring the class?

Something like: class_in_file($file);

As I already mentioned, I know this can be done with requiring/including the class and then looking up class_exists($class);, but any other ways?

Answer 1

$tokens = token_get_all(file_get_contents('foo.php'));

Then go through the tokens to see if you can spot a certain T_CLASS entry.

http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.token-get-all.php
http://www.php.net/manual/en/tokens.php