(PHP 4 >= 4.0.1, PHP 5, PHP 7)
fscanf — Parses input from a file according to a format
   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, which is
   described in the documentation for sprintf(). 
  
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.
Each call to fscanf() reads one line from the file.
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.
Example #1 fscanf() Example
<?php
$handle = fopen("users.txt", "r");
while ($userinfo = fscanf($handle, "%s\t%s\t%s\n")) {
    list ($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