File to string : what's the fastest way?

Hi,

I was wondering what's the fastest way to
get a string from a given file.

I know 2 ways :

return implode("",file("$file"));

and (as seen on php.net) :

$filename = "/usr/local/something.txt";
$fd = fopen ($filename, "r");
$contents = fread ($fd, filesize ($filename));
fclose ($fd);

What's the fastest way? Anyone know an other
way?

Thanks for your help.

Mike

I guess the second would be faster.

The first method has to do everything the second method does, plus it has to convert the data into an array and back again through the implode().

But the only sure way is to try it out, do a benchmark and see for yourself which is faster.

I've benchmarked them before and the second method is faster.