This is a rather old thread but I stumbled across it looking for ideas for a config file format so I thought I would update it for future journeymen. For my config files I have settled on JSON, which I guess was not around when this thread was hewn from stone tablets. To make it easier for humans I have used relaxed (allow comments and terminal commas) and pretty options for when I output them.

use strict; use warnings;
use JSON;
use Data::Dumper;

# Get a JSON object to handle our config file and data stores
my $json = JSON->new->relaxed->pretty;

# Read configuration
my $cfg;
# open my $config, '<', $conf_file or die "Can not read $conf_file: $!
+\n";
local $/; 
$cfg = $json->decode (<DATA>);
close $config;
print Dumper $cfg;

__DATA__
# Here is our config
# There are many like it but this one is ours
{
   #####################################################
   #                                                   #
   # Data Base connections strings and active option   #
   #                                                   #
   #####################################################
   "DB_Connections" : {
      "foo" : {
         "conx" : [
            "dbi:Oracle:FOO.world",
            "foo_user",
            "foo_pswd" 
         ],
         "active" : 1
      },
      "bar" : {
         "conx" : [
            "dbi:DB2:bar",
            "bar_user",
            "bar_pass",
         ],
         "active" : 0
      }
   },
   "hosts" : (
      "host1" : ["readme", "andme"],
      "host2" : ["readthis", "that", "and another"], # comma allowed b
+y relaxed
   )
}
[download]

Cheers,
R.