I very strongly recommend against XML::Simple! A good replacement for reading XML is XML::Rules, its output is much more customizable. Update: If you want func to be an arrayref, just replace 'as is' by 'as array'.

use warnings;
use strict;
use XML::Rules;
use Data::Dump;

my $parser = XML::Rules->new(
    stripspaces => 3|4,
    rules => [
        root=>'pass',
        config=>'', build=>'',
        ref=>'by name', func=>'as is',
        _default => sub { die "Unknown tag $_[0]" }
    ] );
my $data = $parser->parse(<<'END_XML');
<root>
    <config>
        <build host="https://cpzdomain.local"/>
    </config>
    <ref name="abc_sia_%version1.ref%">
        <func envname = "test01" objectdir = "/home/pv66" 
            base="default_771"/>
    </ref>
</root>
END_XML
dd $data;

__END__

{
  "abc_sia_%version1.ref%" => {
    func => { base => "default_771", envname => "test01",
      objectdir => "/home/pv66" },
  },
}
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