You can make your own class to process config files. For plain config files it may looks like this:

package PlainConfig;
use strict;
use Carp;
use vars qw($AUTOLOAD);
 
sub new{
  my $self=shift;
  my $config=shift || croak "There is no path parameter specified";
  my $new={};
  open CONFIG, $config || croak "Couldn't open config file - $config";
  while (<CONFIG>){
    s/^\s*//;
    next if (/^\s*#/ or /^$/);
    /^([^=\s]+)\s*=\s*([^\n\r]*)/;
    $new->{$1}=$2;
  }
  close CONFIG;
  bless $new, $self;
  return $new;
}
 
sub AUTOLOAD{
  my $self=shift;
  my $attr=$AUTOLOAD;
  $attr=~s/(.*::)+//;
  return $self->{$attr};
}

1;
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Then your script will be looks like this:

use PlainConfig;
my $config=new PlainConfig;
print "Username: ".$config->username."\n";
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But there are many other approaches. Choose the best.