Is there an ELisp function for reading file contents in a string?

[stephan . zimmer]

Hi,

does anybody know whether there is a function in elisp that just reads
the contents of a text file into a string?

So far, I haven't found anything that could be related to that. The
only, yet not very charming, possibility that I currently see is to
use the "insert-file" function in combination with the "buffer-
(sub)string" function and later erase the inserted file contents
again.

Thanks very much,
  Stephan