diff --git a/include/fc/io/fstream.hpp b/include/fc/io/fstream.hpp
index ddf2536..8344ce9 100644
--- a/include/fc/io/fstream.hpp
+++ b/include/fc/io/fstream.hpp
@@ -47,4 +47,11 @@ namespace fc {
       fc::shared_ptr<impl> my;
   };
 
+  /**
+   * Grab the full contents of a file into a string object.
+   * NB reading a full file into memory is a poor choice
+   * if the file may be very large.
+   */
+  void read_file_contents( const fc::path& filename, std::string& result );
+
 } // namespace fc
diff --git a/src/io/fstream.cpp b/src/io/fstream.cpp
index 71af81d..a40bbeb 100644
--- a/src/io/fstream.cpp
+++ b/src/io/fstream.cpp
@@ -1,7 +1,10 @@
-#include <fc/io/fstream.hpp>
-#include <fc/filesystem.hpp>
+
 #include <fstream>
+#include <sstream>
+
+#include <fc/filesystem.hpp>
 #include <fc/exception/exception.hpp>
+#include <fc/io/fstream.hpp>
 #include <fc/log/logger.hpp>
 
 #include <boost/filesystem/path.hpp>
@@ -93,5 +96,14 @@ namespace fc {
 
    bool   ifstream::eof()const { return !my->ifs.good(); }
 
+   void read_file_contents( const fc::path& filename, std::string& result )
+   {
+      const boost::filesystem::path& bfp = filename;
+      boost::filesystem::ifstream f( bfp, std::ios::in | std::ios::binary );
+      // don't use fc::stringstream here as we need something with override for << rdbuf()
+      std::stringstream ss;
+      ss << f.rdbuf();
+      result = ss.str();
+   }
   
 } // namespace fc