Iterate over 10GB+ binary file

What is the simplest way to read a 10GB binary file and parse each byte without resorting to boost libraries?

Its so confusing with streams, files, memory mapped files etc.

I literally just want something like:

char* buffer = read(filename, binary);

while(buffer != EOF){
    //Read byte
    ++buffer;
}

Performance does matter simply due to the file size.