performance issue

I want to read a file.
is it good to use File I/O or shell script??
which one is the best option?

file input / output - ( fopen and fclose )
are the minimum granularity of reading a file.

Even if shell script is used, internally fopen and fclose are used without the conscious of the user. They are available as implementation abstraction to the user so that user don't have to worry about the file operations instead could think about the application logic alone