ok, i know how to show a certain line from a text file but say I had a text file like this:

bill | 23 | php
fred | 19 | cgi
frank | 20 | asp
brian | 33 | php
edward | 27 | php
james | 30 | asp

how would go about getting the data of lines 3 to 5? like this:

frank | 20 | asp
brian | 33 | php
edward | 27 | php

Thanks in advance!

I do not realy understand what your problem is, but i think this will help you:

example:
but i do not know if this work ...

good luck ;P

//EDIT

here is a url

You should be able to read information by each line into an array. Remember an array starts with a '0'. Here is some code that I have used in the past to read each rows and then also split them out which may be what you want to do anyway.

// -- Variables --
$file_dir = "mydir"; // Directory Of Text File
$myfile = "myfile.txt"; // Text File
$filearray= file("$file_dir/$myfile"); // Opens File for Array Reading

// -- Splitting array per line by delmiter | in file
// -- Getting line 3 - 5 into array
// -- You may have to change the '3' at the end of the line to pertain
// to you depending on how you want to parse it.
list($row3_left,$row3_middle,$row3_right)= split("|",$filearray[2], 3);
list($row4_left,$row4_middle,$row4_right)= split("|",$filearray[3], 3);
list($row5_left,$row5_middle,$row5_right)= split("|",$filearray[4], 3);


Doing this will create a total of nine parsed out variables you can use.

I have not tested this with your information, but this should be close to what you need to use it for.

Hopfully this helps