PHP GD: How to get imagedata as binary string?

Question

I\'m using a solution for assembling image files to a zip and streaming it to browser/Flex application. (ZipStream by Paul Duncan, http://pablotron.org/software/zipstream-ph

Answer 1

The php://memory stream can be used when output-buffer juggling is unwanted. https://www.php.net/manual/en/wrappers.php.php

$imagedata = imagecreatefrompng($imagefile);

// processing

$stream = fopen('php://memory','r+');
imagepng($imagedata,$stream);
rewind($stream);
$stringdata = stream_get_contents($stream);

// Compressing the string data
$zdata = gzdeflate($stringdata );