I have done this as well, though I have accomplished this in kind of a strange way. See my reply to the thread below:
In this case, rather than accessing the files from the webserver/webapps/main directory, you would just be checking the contents with the os.listdir() function I mentioned in my previous post.
Edit: I guess there's no real reason why you'd need to create a symbolic link within the Ignition install directory, you could create it anywhere on the gateway machine.