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  <refentry id="function.fscanf">
   <refnamediv>
    <refname>fscanf</refname>
    <refpurpose>Parses input from a file according to a format</refpurpose>
   </refnamediv>
   <refsect1>
    <title>Description</title>
     <methodsynopsis>
      <type>mixed</type><methodname>fscanf</methodname>
      <methodparam><type>resource</type><parameter>handle</parameter></methodparam>
      <methodparam><type>string</type><parameter>format</parameter></methodparam>
      <methodparam choice="opt"><type>mixed</type><parameter role="reference">...</parameter></methodparam>
     </methodsynopsis>
    <para>
     The function <function>fscanf</function> is similar to
     <function>sscanf</function>, but it takes its input from a file
     associated with <parameter>handle</parameter> and interprets the
     input according to the specified <parameter>format</parameter>, which is
     described in the documentation for <function>sprintf</function>. 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.
    </para>
    <para>
     Any whitespace in the format string matches any whitespace in the input
     stream. This means that even a tab <literal>\t</literal> in the format
     string can match a single space character in the input stream.
    </para>
    <para>
     <example>
      <title><function>fscanf</function> Example</title>
      <programlisting role="php">
<![CDATA[
<?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);
?>
]]>
      </programlisting>
     </example>
     <example>
      <title>Contents of users.txt</title>
     <programlisting role="txt">
<![CDATA[
javier  argonaut        pe
hiroshi sculptor        jp
robert  slacker us
luigi   florist it
]]>
      </programlisting>
     </example>
    </para>
    <note>
     <simpara>
      Prior to PHP 4.3.0, the maximum number of characters read from
      the file was 512 (or up to the first \n, whichever came first).
      As of PHP 4.3.0 arbitrarily long lines will be read and scanned.
     </simpara>
    </note>
    <para>
     See also <function>fread</function>, <function>fgets</function>,
     <function>fgetss</function>, <function>sscanf</function>,
     <function>printf</function>, and <function>sprintf</function>.
    </para>
   </refsect1>
  </refentry>

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