#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
use File::Slurp;
use Data::Dumper;
$file="config.txt";

my %record =map{
s/#.*//;
s/^\s+//;
s/\s+$//;
m/(.*?)\s*=\s*(.*)/;
} read_file($file);

print Dumper (\%record);

##</code><code>##

$VAR1={
                 'Name' =>John Smith',
                 'URL' => '15',
                 'RANK' => 'Tier 1',
                 'URL' => 'http://somesite.com'
               };

##</code><code>##

$VAR1= bless( {
                 'Name' =>John Smith',
                 'URL' => '15',
                 'RANK' => 'Tier 1',
                 'URL' => 'http://somesite.com'
               }, 'REC' );