phpqrcode library return image as a string

Question

http://sourceforge.net/projects/phpqrcode/, is a great library but i can't find how to return the png image as a string, the basic examples are

QRcode::png('code data text', 'filename.png'); // creates file 
QRcode::png('some othertext 1234'); // creates code image and outputs it directly into browser

i checked the documentation and nothing, help! :B

Answer 1

ob_start();
QRCode::png('text', null);
$imageString = base64_encode( ob_get_contents() );
ob_end_clean();

Answer 2

$qrTempDir = 'path/to/your/temp';
$filePath = $qrTempDir.'/'.uniqid();

QRcode::png('some text', $filePath);
$qrImage = file_get_contents($filePath);

unlink($filePath);

This should be what you're looking for. You can extend it to show an image like that:

<img src="data:image/png;base64,<?php echo base64_encode($qrImage) ?>" />

Unfortunately, the library does not support any other method at the moment, because calling the QRcode::png function without the file parameter not only makes it send those headers, but it also exits the code execution, so there is no retracting or overwriting the headers.