Do you really need the config file to define lexical variables --- or would populating a config hash suffice? If so there are various config modules on CPAN. A very simple and direct method is to define an anonymous hash in the config file and capture it via require --- as in this node. As erikharrison mentions, any code evaluation solution (as opposed to a parsing solution) means you trust the code in the config file.

In reply to Re: Calling variables from external file, with strict by danger
in thread Calling variables from external file, with strict by c

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