my $re1 = qr{ ... }msx;
my $re2 = qr{ ... }msx;
my $big_re = qr{ (?: $re1 | $re2 ) }msx;

##</code><code>##

use warnings;
use strict;
use Data::Dump qw/dd/; # for debugging

my $re = qr{
		^ \s*             # beginning of line
		(?<name> \w+ )    # the variable name
		\s* = \s*         # equals
		(?:               # one of the following (
		    (?<num> \d+ )   # a number
		|                   # or
		    (?<str> \w+ )   # a word
		)                 # )
		\s* $             # end of line
	}msx;

my @lines = split /\n/, <<'SAMPLE_INPUT';
foo=bar
 quz = 5 
SAMPLE_INPUT

for my $line (@lines) {
	$line =~ $re or die "Failed to parse '$line'";
	dd \%+; # debug
	print "Match! Name: '$+{name}'\n";
	if (exists $+{num})
		{ print "It was a number: '$+{num}'\n" }
	elsif (exists $+{str})
		{ print "It was a string: '$+{str}'\n" }
	else { die "internal error: neither str nor num" }
}

__END__

{
  # tied Tie::Hash::NamedCapture
  name => "foo",
  str  => "bar",
}
Match! Name: 'foo'
It was a string: 'bar'
{
  # tied Tie::Hash::NamedCapture
  name => "quz",
  num  => 5,
}
Match! Name: 'quz'
It was a number: '5'