function encode_file($sourcefile) {
 if (is_readable($sourcefile)) {
    $fd = fopen($sourcefile, "r");
    $contents = fread($fd,filesize($sourcefile));
    $encoded = chunk_split(base64_encode($contents));
    fclose($fd);
 }
 return $encoded;
}

$source = $DOCUMENT_ROOT."/IMAGES/titolomail.gif";

encode_file($source);

fopen also don't work with "rb" option and system return a memory violation
error

So what you're saying is that using fopen with 'rb' which is 
the only way to open files (on windows) in binary mode,
does not work? Is this the problem?

Because using 'r' only won't work with binary files, such
as .gif's.

--Jani

No feedback. Closing.