UPDATE:

Looks like i didn't read your question well. My original post isn't really a solution to the problem at hand . . .

What you need is a template! You could actually use HTML::Template for this, or roll your own if it is minor enough. I do recommend delimiting your TAG though, maybe enclose USER in brackets [], or just do what tye says. But you will have to substitute your value in.

ORIGINAL POST FOLLOWS:

---

Oh no! Not the dreaded no strict refs!!

Seriously, do a Super Search on symbolic references and you will see why that are bad, bad, bad.

How about an XML solution instead?

use strict;
use XML::Simple;

local $/;

my $xml = XMLin(<DATA>, forcearray => 1);

foreach (@{$xml->{'user'}}) {
    print "the user is $_\n";
}

__DATA__
<users>
<user>jeffa</user>
<user>foo</user>
<user>bar</user>
</users>
[download]

If you have XML::Simple installed, you can run this without a hitch. Next step would be to remove the __DATA__ section and place it in your config file. Then you can worry about $ENV{'USER'}. Good Luck!

jeffa