Is there an alternative to php readfile() in safe mode server?

I host my site on a shared hosting, which lately changed the server to safe mode (without even notifying that). I use a feature that download files from the server, using the readfile() function (I use php). Now, in safe_mode, this function is no longer available. Is there a replacement or a workaround to handle the situation that the file will be able to be downloaded by the user?

Thanks

As I wrote in comments, readfile() is disabled by including it in disable_functions php.ini directive. It has nothing to do with safe mode. Try checking which functions are disabled and see if you can use any other filesystem function(-s) to do what readfile() does.

To see the list of disabled functions, use:

var_dump(ini_get('disable_functions'));

You might use:

// for any file
$file = fopen($filename, 'rb');
if ( $file !== false ) {
    fpassthru($file);
    fclose($file);
}

// for any file, if fpassthru() is disabled
$file = fopen($filename, 'rb');
if ( $file !== false ) {
    while ( !feof($file) ) {
        echo fread($file, 4096);
    }
    fclose($file);
}

// for small files;
// this should not be used for large files, as it loads whole file into memory
$data = file_get_contents($filename);
if ( $data !== false ) {
    echo $data;
}

// if and only if everything else fails, there is a *very dirty* alternative;
// this is *dirty* mainly because it "explodes" data into "lines" as if it was
// textual data
$data = file($filename);
if ( $data !== false ) {
    echo implode('', $data);
}