Display image outside public folder with file_get_contents function

PHP
1

Hello,

I’m currently creating a website where users can upload their images and create a photo gallery.
I’m storing the images outside the public directory and I’m using “echo file_get_contents” to display these images.
My question is: will fetching the images through the function file_get_contents be significantly slower than
displaying the images when they are in the public folder using normal “img src” method?

2

Slightly. The answer rather depends on how big the files are. Essentially, using the get_contents is a double load - the server has to read the data entirely (to complete the file_get_contents), and then echo it out.

That said, unless you’re heavily loading your server, or using multi-megabyte images, the difference will be negligable.