Thus my question: what is the easiest way to handle it?
If it's really a simple matter of matching braces then you could indeed use a regex 
use Regexp::Common;

my $str = <<CODE;
env {
  foo { bar {} }
}
CODE

print $str =~ /($RE{balanced}{-parens => '{}'})/;

__output__

{
  foo { bar {} }
}

[download]
Check out Re: Graph File Parsing for some regex style parsing, or if you'd prefer to stay away from regexes there's always Text::Balanced.
HTH

_________
broquaint

In reply to Re: Parsing... possible w/o too much stress ? by broquaint
in thread Parsing... possible w/o too much stress ? by spurperl

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