I agree with Dave that Parse::RecDescent could be a good way to do it. If you want to "roll your own" though, you could do something like:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
package Item;
sub new {
    my $proto = shift;
    my $class = ref($proto) || $proto;
    my $self  = {};
    bless ($self, $class);
    return $self;
}

sub add_attribute {
    my $self = shift;
    my ($key,$value) = @_;
    $self->{$key} = $value;
}

1;  #included in case Item becomes a real Module someday.

package Section;
sub new {
    my $proto = shift;
    my $class = ref($proto) || $proto;
    my $self  = {};
    $self->{Items} = [];
    bless ($self, $class);
    return $self;
}

sub add_attribute {
    my $self = shift;
    my ($key,$value) = @_;
    $self->{$key} = $value;
}

sub add_item {
    my $self = shift;
    my $item = Item->new();
    push @{$self->{Items}},$item;
    return $item;
}

1; #Ditto

package UberObject;
sub new {
    my $proto = shift;
    my $class = ref($proto) || $proto;
    my $self  = [];
    bless ($self, $class);
    return $self;
}

sub add_section {
    my $self = shift;
    my $section = Section->new();
    push @$self,$section;
    return $section;
}

1; #again

package Main;
use Data::Dumper;
my $uo = new UberObject();
my ($section,$item) = (undef,undef);

while (<>) {  #dammit Jim, parse the data already!
    if (/begin_section/) {
    $section = $uo->add_section();
    } elsif (/end_section/) {
    undef $section; 
    } elsif (/begin_item/) {
    $item = $section->add_item();
    } elsif (/end_item/) {
    undef $item;
    } elsif (/=/) {
        if (defined($item)) {
            $item->add_attribute(split(/=/));
        } elsif (defined($section)) {
            $section->add_attribute(split(/=/));
        } else { 
            die "Bad attribute at line $.";
        }
    }
}

#probably should do something interesting .....
#        .... nah Just Dump it all!
my $d=Data::Dumper->new([$uo],['UberObject']);
$d->Indent(1);
print $d->Dump();
[download]

When tested with a file that contains:

begin_section
     name=section1
     type=section_type1

     begin_item
          name=item1
          desc=item_description1
          link=item_link1
     end_item

     begin_item
          name=item2
          desc=item_description2
          link=item_link2
     end_item

end_section

begin_section
     name=section2
     type=section_type2

     begin_item
          name=item21
          desc=item_description21
          link=item_link21
     end_item

     begin_item
          name=item22
          desc=item_description22
          link=item_link22
     end_item
end_section
[download]

yields:

"The correct thing" (Exercise left to reader)
[download]

You may also consider massaging the data (or writing a converter) to XML and use XML::Parser which can also be used in an OOish way..
Note: As the last poster mentioned while I was busy typing, Error checking = Good, and I don't do enough of it in my example... another excersize left to reader.
Hope that helps,
-ase

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