Flat File List Style Menu Help

[cooldude832]

I'm trying to build a Menu Building out of flatfiling with a section to add new areas to it.  The idea behind it is to have a header for each section (as the top order list item) then each one below is a link of that category.

I already figured I'm buillding it with limits (20 items Max per heading) and that to do it I will simply have each Heading/links in it be a new row in the document.  example row

 

Tips tips.php Tips on Php, file tips File Tips tips/files.php, etc etc

 

With the first item of each row being the Heading and each other being the ones under it

My question is What delimiters should I use to seperate in the row (I need to separate each item by 1 delimiter and then in each row separate the href, alt, name)

 

Secondly for rewrtiign it should I simply write it so each time it rewrites the whole file or should  I try and do string replacing and do modify sorta deal.