Files passing through

Hi People, I want to use a PHP script to pass through a file to the browser [ right after some processing ]. What is the fastest way to do this? I know echo(file_get_contents('myfile')); is not a good idea ;) Is fpassthrough the right choice? maybe virtual, so it won't go through php but apache does the job? there's also readfile Another question, how seriously does this affect the performance in comparison to let apache handle it. Is the difference big at MB+ files? or only significant when dealing with a lot of tiny files? Thanks for your help! Evert