How to save an image to a variable?

Question

PHP

I use the following function to put text on an image:

function make_image($text,$font,$size) {
    $img = imagecreatefromjpeg('ui-bg-tile_1000_2.jpg'); 
    $color = imagecolorallocate ($img, 255, 255, 255);
    imagettftext($img, $size, 0, 10, 200, $color, $font, $text);
    imagejpeg($img);
    imagedestroy($img);
}

How to return the image code after executing the function in return? That is, to immediately return what will be in $return:

imagejpeg($img,'img.jpg'); $return = file_get_contents('img.jpg');

Answer 1

ob_start();
imagejpeg($img);
$return = ob_get_contents();
ob_end_clean();