### returns the requested setting
### Used like so: my $name = getSetting('name');
### Config file: name=Devin
sub getSetting {
	my ($attr_to_get) = shift;  # the attribute to get
	
	# opens and reads the config file,
	# returns a hash
	my %attrs = openCfgFile()
					       ('your/path/to/config.file');
					       
	# return the requested attribute if it exists
	# otherwise, give them a big fat null
	return $attrs{$attr_to_get}
		 ? $attrs{$attr_to_get}
		 : "NULL";
	
}


### open, read, and return the hash.
sub openCfgFile {
	my ($cfg) = shift;			# the file parameter
	# open and read
	open CFG, "<", $cfg or die  "File not found: $!";  
		my @settings = <CFG>;
	close CFG;
	
	my %values;  				# create the values hash
	foreach (@settings) {       # loop through the file
		chomp; 					# remove endline characters (\n, \r....)
		s|#.+||;				# remove comments
		s|"(.+?)"|$1|g;			# (not working) allow whitespace for strings
		s|\s||;			        # remove whitespace
		my( $key, $val) = split /=/; #  begin creating the hash, split the file on the "=" sign
		$values{$key}=$val;			 #  create the hash key/values pairs
	}
	return %values;
}