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# fscanf

(PHP 4 >= 4.0.1)

fscanf -- Parses input from a file according to a format

## Description

mixed fscanf ( int handle, string format [, string var1])

The function fscanf() is similar to sscanf(), but it takes its input from a file associated with `handle` and interprets the input according to the specified `format`. 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.

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

Example 1. fscanf() Example

    $fp = fopen ("users.txt","r");
    while ($userinfo = fscanf ($fp, "%s\t%s\t%s\n")) {
        list ($name, $profession, $countrycode) = $userinfo;
        //... do something with the values
    }
    fclose($fp);

Example 2. users.txt

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

See also fread(), fgets(), fgetss(), sscanf(), printf(), and sprintf().

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