sub read_the_config() {
 open(CFG, "<$file") || log_error("Problem reading $file - $!");
  while (<CFG>) {
    chomp;                    # remove newline
    s/\s+$//;                 # remove trailing space
    s/\s+/ /g;                # collapse white spaces to ' '
    next if /^ *\#/;          # skip comment lines
    next if /^\s*$/;          # skip empty lines
    if (/^ \S/) {             # multiline options
      $lines[$#lines] .= $_;
    } else {
      push @lines, $_;
    }
  }
  close CFG;
}

##</code><code>##

sub read_the_config() {
  local $localfile = $file;
  open(CFG, "<$localfile") || log_error("Problem reading $file - $!");
  while (<CFG>) {
    chomp;                    # remove newline
    s/\s+$//;                 # remove trailing space
    s/\s+/ /g;                # collapse white spaces to ' '
    next if /^ *\#/;          # skip comment lines
    next if /^\s*$/;          # skip empty lines
    if (/^ \S/) {             # multiline options
      $lines[$#lines] .= $_;
    } else {
      push @lines, $_;
    }
  }
  close CFG;
}

##</code><code>##

sub read_the_config($$$$) {
  my ($file, $def, $cfgref, $order) = @_;
  my @lines;
 open(CFG, "<$file") || log_error("Problem reading $file - $!");
  while (<CFG>) {
    chomp;                    # remove newline
    s/\s+$//;                 # remove trailing space
    s/\s+/ /g;                # collapse white spaces to ' '
    next if /^ *\#/;          # skip comment lines
    next if /^\s*$/;          # skip empty lines    
    next if /^TopTalker*/;
    if (/^ \S/) {             # multiline options
      $lines[$#lines] .= $_;
    } else {
      push @lines, $_;
    }
  }
  close CFG;
foreach (@lines) {  do all sorts of groovy stuff....}
}

##</code><code>##

 
   ...
   local *CFG;
   open(CFG, "<$file") || log_error("Problem reading $file - $!");
   while (<CFG>) {
   ...
   return \@lines;