#! perl -slw
use strict;
use Data::Dumper;

my $re = qr[
    (string|float|float2|float3|float4) \s+
    (\w+) \s*
    (?:
        < \s*
            ( [^>]+? )  \s*
        > \s*
    )?
    = \s* ( \S+ ) \s*
    ;
]x;

my $data = do{ local $/; <DATA> };
my %vars;
while( $data =~ m[$re]smg ) {
    my( $type, $name, $structure, $value ) = ( $1, $2, $3, $4 );
    $vars{ $name } = { type => $type, value => $value };
    if( defined $structure ) {
        while( $structure =~ m[$re]smg ) {
            my( $stype, $sname, $svalue ) = ( $1, $2, $4 );
            if( my( $prefix, $rest ) = $sname =~ m[([A-Z]+)([A-Z][a-z]+)] ) {
                $vars{ $name }{ $prefix }{ $rest } = $svalue;
            }
        }
    }
}

print Dumper \%vars;

__DATA__
float myVarA
<
float UIMin = 1;
float UIMax = 0;
float UIStep = .001;
string UIWidget = "slider";
> =  0.5f;

float myVarB = 1.0;

float4 myVarC = {1,0,0,1};


##</code><code>##

C:\test>junk2
$VAR1 = {
          'myVarA' => {
                        'UI' => {
                                  'Step' => '.001',
                                  'Max' => '0',
                                  'Widget' => '"slider"',
                                  'Min' => '1'
                                },
                        'value' => '0.5f',
                        'type' => 'float'
                      },
          'myVarC' => {
                        'value' => '{1,0,0,1}',
                        'type' => 'float4'
                      },
          'myVarB' => {
                        'value' => '1.0',
                        'type' => 'float'
                      }
        };