It looks like you could take advantage of dispatch tables. 
my %header_handlers = (
   Device => \&process_device,
   Type   => \&process_type,
   ...
);

...

my $handler = $header_handlers{$header};
&{$handler}($ref)
   if defined $handler;

[download]

In reply to Re: Maintainable and robust Pattern Matching with changing goalposts by ikegami
in thread Maintainable and robust Pattern Matching with changing goalposts by McDarren

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