++hdb (x4) for persevering while bits of information were slowly revealed.

You can probably instantiate your REC objects like this:

my $record = REC::->new(
    map { s/#.*$//; /^\s*([^=]+)=(.*?)\s*$/ ? ($1, $2) : () } read_fil
+e($file)
);
[download]

Here's my test:

$ perl -Mstrict -Mwarnings -e '
    my $raw_data = q{
        # Some comment
        NAME=John Smith
        AGE=15 # years only!
        RANK=Tier 1
        URL=http://somesite.com
        URI=http://example.com
    };
    package REC;
    my @req_args = qw{NAME AGE RANK URL};
    sub new {
        my ($class, %args) = @_;
        exists $args{$_} or die "FAILED: $_" for @req_args;
        bless { %args } => $class;
    }
    sub print_for_config {
        my $self = shift;
        print "$_=", $self->{$_}, "\n" for @req_args;
    }
    package main;
    print "=" x 20, "\nDATA IN\n", "=" x 20, "\n$raw_data\n";
    my $record = REC::->new(
        map { s/#.*$//; /^\s*([^=]+)=(.*?)\s*$/ ? ($1, $2) : () }
            split /\n/ => $raw_data
    );
    print "=" x 20, "\nDATA OUT\n", "=" x 20, "\n";
    $record->print_for_config;
'
====================
DATA IN
====================

        # Some comment
        NAME=John Smith
        AGE=15 # years only!
        RANK=Tier 1
        URL=http://somesite.com
        URI=http://example.com
    
====================
DATA OUT
====================
NAME=John Smith
AGE=15
RANK=Tier 1
URL=http://somesite.com
[download]

If you use strict and warnings, you can avoid code like this:

my record =map{
[download]

I'll also draw your attention to the following guidelines:

• How do I compose an effective node title?
• How do I post a question effectively?

---

---

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