You said this is your desired output:

$VAR1 = {
           {
             'cvtype=\'problem\''
           }
        {
           and
        }
           {
             problem_description match \'*\'
           }
        };
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Your desired output makes no sense. It doesn't even compile.

syntax error at a.pl line 5, near "{"
Can't find string terminator "'" anywhere before EOF at a.pl line 9.
[download]

Please fix.

I would like to boil this down into an array

Really? An array of what? Parsers normally produce trees.