title: File::get() for Laravel returns null for existing file
body: <p>Using the <strong>Laravel</strong> framework, I am using the <code>File::get()</code> method to access the CSS file in the <code>public/css</code> directory returns null for a file that both exists, and has content:</p>
  
  <p>the PHP code is: </p>
  
  <pre><code>private static $css_files = array(
                          "main"   =&gt; 'css/main.css',
                          "layout" =&gt; 'css/layout.css'
                          );
  
  public static function get_css ($vars) {
  
      $file     = self::$css_files[$vars["file_name"]];
      $contents = File::get(path('public').$file, "File Not Found ($file)");
  
      return json_encode(array("file" =&gt; path('public').$file,
                           "contents" =&gt; $contents));
  
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>which returns to my webpage (from the js console in Chrome):</p>
  
  <pre><code>Object {file: "/var/www/sites/public/css/main.css", contents: null} 
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>The file exists:</p>
  
  <pre><code>user@pc:~$ ls /var/www/sites/public/css/main.css
  /var/www/sites/public/css/main.css
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>has content:</p>
  
  <pre><code>user@pc:~$ wc -l /var/www/sites/public/css/main.css
  441 /var/www/sites/public/css/main.css
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>and the method doesn't trigger the <code>$default</code> argument in <code>File::get()</code> that it should if the file doesn't exist (tested with other valid and invalid names), so it has definitely found the file.</p>
  
  <p>I've tried other files in the same PHP method (<code>get_css()</code>), from other target directories, and the same directory, and it returns the content of those files with no problem.</p>
  
  <p>the permissions on the CSS file are ok:</p>
  
  <pre><code>user@pc:~$ ls -hal /var/www/sites/public/css/main.css 
  -rw-r--r-- 1 www-data root 6.5K May 25 14:01 /var/www/sites/public/css/main.css
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>a separate PHP script, run from the command line returns the contents:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;?php    
    echo file_get_contents("/var/www/sites/public/css/main.css");
  ?&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>here are the first few lines of the <code>main.css</code></p>
  
  <pre><code>user@pc:~$ head /var/www/sites/public/css/main.css
  
  /* Estilos principais*/
  
      body{
      background-color:#c5c5c5;
      font-family:sans-serif;
      font-size:1.5em;
      color:#999;
      text-align:center;
      margin:0;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Is this a bug?  Are there any reasons (that I can't see right now) for it not liking the contents of the CSS file?</p>