Alternatively, you could write the loop like this:

my @interesting = ();
while(<DATA>) {
    chomp;
    push @interesting, $1 if m/^(?:attribute|value): (.*)$/;
}
my %attributes = @interesting; # magic
[download]

It's a kind of magic. :) You could even turn this into a oneliner, using e.g. grep and map, and employing some more dirty tricks along the way:

my %attributes = grep { length } map { m/^(?:attribute|value): (.*)$/ 
+and $1 } <DATA>;
[download]

Anyhow, going back to the while loop version, adding support for parsing the attributes of several objects at the same time is also fairly straightforward. E.g.:

my %dataObjs = ();

my @interesting = ();
my $dataObj;
while(<DATA>) {
    chomp;

    if(m/^AVUs defined for dataObj (.*):$/) {
        defined $dataObj and $dataObjs{$dataObj} = { @interesting };
        $dataObj = $1;
    }

    push @interesting, $1 if m/^(?:attribute|value): (.*)$/;
}
$dataObjs{$dataObj} = { @interesting };
[download]

Though in this case I'd use your solution instead, since it leads to much simpler code:

my %dataObjs = ();

my @interesting = ();
my $dataObj;
my $att;
while(<DATA>) {
    chomp;
    $dataObj                    = $1 if m/^AVUs defined for dataObj (.
+*):$/;
    $att                        = $1 if m/^attribute:\s+(.+)/;
    $dataObjs{$dataObj}->{$att} = $1 if /^value:\s+(.+)/;
}
[download]

No magic, alas. :)

Side note - according to my favorite WWW search engine, this sort of data is generated by iRODS. CPAN doesn't have any related modules, so here's a good opportunity to contribute to the Perl ecosystem for anyone who works with that system.

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