php man page for fscanf

FSCANF(3)								 1								 FSCANF(3)

fscanf - Parses input from a file according to a format

SYNOPSIS
       mixed fscanf (resource  $handle, string	$format, [mixed  &$...])

DESCRIPTION
	The  function  fscanf(3)  is  similar  to  sscanf(3),  but it takes its input from a file associated with $handle and interprets the input
       according to the specified $format, which is described in the documentation for sprintf(3).

	Any whitespace in the format string matches any whitespace in the input stream. This means that even a tab 	 in  the  format  string  can
       match a single space character in the input stream.

	Each call to fscanf(3) reads one line from the file.

PARAMETERS
	      o $handle
		-A file system pointer resource that is typically created using fopen(3).

	      o $format
		- The specified format as described in the sprintf(3) documentation.

	      o $...
		- The optional assigned values.

RETURN VALUES
	If only two parameters were passed to this function, the values parsed will be returned as an array. Otherwise, if optional parameters are
       passed, the function will return the number of assigned values. The optional parameters must be passed by reference.

EXAMPLES
       Example #1

	      fscanf(3) Example

	      <?php
	      $handle = fopen("users.txt", "r");
	      while ($userinfo = fscanf($handle, "%s	%s	%s
")) {
		  list ($name, $profession, $countrycode) = $userinfo;
		  //... do something with the values
	      }
	      fclose($handle);
	      ?>

       Example #2

	      Contents of users.txt

	      javier  argonaut	      pe
	      hiroshi sculptor	      jp
	      robert  slacker us
	      luigi   florist it

SEE ALSO
       fread(3), fgets(3), fgetss(3), sscanf(3), printf(3), sprintf(3).

PHP Documentation Group 														 FSCANF(3)