use strict;
use warnings;
use Data::Dumper;

# Read an input file
# Return a reference to a hash of properties
sub get_properties
{
   my $fname = shift;
   open my $fh, '<', $fname or die "open '$fname': $!";
   my %hash_ret;
   my $line;
   while ( defined( $line = <$fh> ) ) {
      chomp $line;
      $line =~ s/^\s+//;           # remove leading
      $line =~ s/\s+$//;           # and trailing whitespace
      next unless length $line;    # ignore empty lines
      next if $line =~ /^#/;       # ignore comment lines
      my ($key, $val) = split /\s*=\s*/, $line, 2;
      $hash_ret{$key} = $val;
   }
   close $fh;
   return \%hash_ret;
}

@ARGV or die "usage: $0 property-file\n";
my $prop_file = shift;
print "prop_file='$prop_file'\n";
my $properties = get_properties($prop_file);
print Dumper( $properties );