Description:
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Like pinkgothic at gmail dot com, 03-Apr-2007, I also found the documentation mildly misleading and also lacking a basic description.

"The length parameter ... became optional in PHP 5"
It IS required with PHP 4: 
array fgetcsv  ( resource $handle  , int $length  [, string $delimiter  [, string $enclosure  [, string $escape  ]]] )

fgetcsv is a specialized combination of fgets() and split() that reads a file and splits each record into an array based on $delimiter (default: comma) but ignoring any delimiters within $enclosure (default:double quotes)

$fp1=fopen($inputfile,"r");

while(!feof($fp1)){
        $record = fgetcsv($fp1,1000);
//  For example a csv record formatted as:
//  ,"Abels",,"Karen D.","123, Test blvd, Apt 7","Anytown","PA","19123-1234","610,644-1234",,,,,"""Harry""",

//  is stored as
print_r($record);    // (partially shown here)
Array ( [0] => [1] => Abels [2] => [3] => Karen D. [4] => 123, Test blvd, Apt 7  ...
[8] => 610,644-1234 ... [13] => "Harry" )

Any commas within a field were ignored and quotes within a field were handled correctly.