Beware: class_exists is case-INsensitive, as is class instantiation.
php > var_dump(class_exists("DomNode"));
bool(true)
php > var_dump(class_exists("DOMNode"));
bool(true)
php > var_dump(class_exists("DOMNodE"));
bool(true)
php > $x = new DOMNOdE();
php > var_dump(get_class($x));
string(7) "DOMNode"
(tested with PHP 5.5.10 on Linux)
This can cause some headaches in correlating class names to file names, especially on a case-sensitive file system.