...A couple of header lines...

FILETYPE=XXXXXX

...The useful information I'm after...

##</code><code>##

package My::Package;
use strict;
use warnings;

...other module stuff...

sub read_slurp {

   # "worst-case-scenario" way of splitting up the 
   # file into its separate lines

   foreach ( split /(?:\015{1,2}\012|\015|\012)/, shift ) {

      # Skip comments
      if ( /^(?:\#|\!|$)/ ) {
         next;
      }

      ######################################
      # Parse the Filetype info
      ######################################
      if ( /^FILETYPE=(.*)\s*$/ ) {
         $self->{'FILETYPE'} = "$1";
         next;
      }

      ... LOAD THE APPROPRIATE MODULE ...
      ...     AND CONTINUE PARSING    ...

##</code><code>##

      ######################################
      # Parse the blockname
      ######################################
      if ( /^blockname\s+(.*)\s*$/ ) {
         $self->{'blockname'} = "$1";
         next;
      }

      ######################################
      # Parse the list info
      ######################################
      if ( /^list\s+(\d+)\s+(.*)\s*$/ ) {
         $self->{'list'}->{"$1"}->{"$3"} = "$2";
         next;
      }

      ...ETC ETC ETC...