use warnings; use strict; use Data::Dump::Streamer; my @libs; local $/ = 'libname='; # Read a record at a time while () { chomp; next if ! length; # Skip blank lines s/\n|\r/ /g; # Remove conventional line end characters next if ! s/(\S+)\s*//; my $str = $_; my %record; $record{libname} = $1; while ($str =~ /=/) { # Process an option last if ! ($str =~ s/\s*(\S+?)\s*=\s*//); my $opName = $1; my $opValue; if ($str =~ s/^\s*"([^"]*)"\s*//) { # Complicated option value $opValue = parseSubOps ($1); } elsif ($str =~ s/\s*(\S+)\s*//) { # Simple option $opValue = $1; } $record{$opName} = $opValue; } push @libs, {%record}; } Dump (\@libs); sub parseSubOps { my $str = shift; my %subOps; while ($str =~ /=/) { # Process a sub-option last if ! ($str =~ s/\s*(\S+)\s* = \s*\(\s* ([^)]*?) \)\s*//x); my $name = $1; my @values = $2 =~ /'([^']*?)'/g; $subOps{$name} = \@values; } return \%subOps; } __DATA__ libname=foo pathname=/path/to/metadata/foo owner=someuser libaclinherit=no dynlock=no roptions=" datapath=('/data/path1' '/data/path2' '/data/path3' ...) indexpath=('/indx/path1' '/indx/path2' '/indx/path3' ...) workpath=('/work/path1' '/work/path2' '/work/path3' ...) metapath=('/meta/path1' '/meta/path2' '/meta/path3' ...)"; libname=bar pathname=/path/to/metadata/bar owner=someuser libaclinherit=no dynlock=no roptions=" datapath=('/data/path1' '/data/path2' '/data/path3' ...) indexpath=('/indx/path1' '/indx/path2' '/indx/path3' ...) workpath=('/work/path1' '/work/path2' '/work/path3' ...) metapath=('/meta/path1' '/meta/path2' '/meta/path3' ...)"; libname=foobar pathname=/path/to/metadata;