### returns the requested setting
### Used like so: my $name = getSetting('name');
### Config file: name=Devin
sub getSetting {
    my ($attr_to_get) = shift;  # the attribute to get
    
    # opens and reads the config file,
    # returns a hash
    my %attrs = openCfgFile()
                           ('your/path/to/config.file');
                           
    # return the requested attribute if it exists
    # otherwise, give them a big fat null
    return $attrs{$attr_to_get}
         ? $attrs{$attr_to_get}
         : "NULL";
    
}


### open, read, and return the hash.
sub openCfgFile {
    my ($cfg) = shift;            # the file parameter
    # open and read
    open CFG, "<", $cfg or die  "File not found: $!";  
        my @settings = <CFG>;
    close CFG;
    
    my %values;                  # create the values hash
    foreach (@settings) {       # loop through the file
        chomp;                     # remove endline characters (\n, \r
+....)
        s|#.+||;                # remove comments
        s|"(.+?)"|$1|g;            # (not working) allow whitespace fo
+r strings
        s|\s||;                    # remove whitespace
        my( $key, $val) = split /=/; #  begin creating the hash, split
+ the file on the "=" sign
        $values{$key}=$val;             #  create the hash key/values 
+pairs
    }
    return %values;
}
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