In reply to Vaino:
Then what you want is something like:
string line;
string first_word_column [];
fd = $fopen ("myfile.txt", "r");
while (!$feof(fd)) begin
code = $fgets (line, fd); //Get entire line
code = $sscanf (line, "%s", first_word_column[i]); //Get first word of that line
i++;
end
$fclose (fd);