fscanf syntax

I want to parse a file with the following syntax. hostname|protocol|number|severity|description Each record is on it's own line and have the fields delimited by the pipe character |. The file may have thousands of records and I would like to bring them into a database for reporting. Some of you may recognize this a the file format of a Nessus security scan file. What function should I use and what would the syntax be? Thanks, Pat