#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
use Data::Dumper qw(Dumper);

my @lines;
while (<>) {
    chomp;
    next if /^\s*$/; # skip blank lines;
    # next if /^\s*#/;  # skip comments
    push @lines, $_;
} continue {
    close ARGV if eof;  # Not eof()!
}

print Dumper \@lines;

__END__

$ perl test.pl in.txt
$VAR1 = [
          'line1',
          'line2',
          'line4',
          'line6'
        ];