Why don't you just strip off everything starting with #?

$line =~ s!#.*$!!; # strip off comments
my( $key, $value ) = split /=/, $line;

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In reply to Re^3: Regex to ignore comment by Corion
in thread Regex to ignore comment by crusty_collins

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
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