how to obtain byte stream from an image resource

Hello

I have generated an image resource using imagecopyresampled.
Is there a simple way to obtain the byte stream of that resource?

An indirect method would be to store the image to a file like so:

[code=php]
// assuming this is a jpeg
ImageJPEG($resource, $filename);
// read the byte stream using fread
$stream = fread(fopen($filename, “r”), filesize($filename));
[/code]

This method is awkward because it may be slow (generating a file) and I would need to delete the file afterwards.

is there a better way?

My ultimate goal is to save the byte stream as a blob in the database.

thanks in advance

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