If you know how to use file streams it should be quite simple. I have to admit that a multidimensional array seems to be the best bet for this problem since you could then streamline the code to a nested for loop. (Even though I know how bad that is.)
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for (int row = 0; row < num; row++)
{
for (int col = 0; col < anothernum; col++)
{
fstream >> somestring;
x[row][col] = somestring;
}
}