1. The fittings are the selections of playes from a data base of >1000 items
2. yep. Each blank line sets the next slot
2a. as above
3. Each ship has ALWAYS 4 slots. High, med, low and rig slots, but the player doesn't have to use them all (there are a lot of crazy people in the game )
3a. Ther order of the slots in the file is, Low - Med - High - Rig (always).

Ok, now that I understand how your file is set up, I can offer some advice:

Your file relies on line endings and blank lines to seperate data. By looking for them and taking everything from the previous EOL+1 (end of line) to the current EOL you've got your item. (This is a string-centric view.)

Reading in a file makes this process easy. As you read each line, you'll have your items, or an EOL character. You can then do as you wish with the item (you may need to chop() it first) such as compare it to a list of items appropriate to the slot you're reading, or simply adding it to the appropriate place in the database. If it's an EOL, don't worry. The database accepts NULL values (unless someone used the NOT NULL option.)

Why don't you try it and see if you can do it now?