Have you looked at eval? Have you had a problem using it?

Update with code: 

use strict;
use warnings;

use Data::Dumper;

sub filter_and_return_ref {
    my $in = shift;

    my @lines = split /\n/, $in;
    for ( @lines ) {
        s{ \A (\S+) }{$1 =>}xms;
        $_ .= ',';
    }
    unshift @lines, '{';
    push @lines, '}';

    return eval join q{}, @lines;
}

my $unfiltered = <<'END_OF_UNFILTERED';
key1 "value1"
key2 "value2"
key3 "value3"
END_OF_UNFILTERED
    ;

my $data_ref = filter_and_return_ref( $unfiltered );
print Dumper $data_ref;
__END__
$VAR1 = {
          'key2' => 'value2',
          'key1' => 'value1',
          'key3' => 'value3'
};

[download]

If you've not used eval before, heed well this warning: it's compiling and executing whatever string you get it as Perl. As such, if it does not have the structure you think it does, it would be possible for it to do things you don't want (much as if you were using do, as you suggest).

In reply to Re: Obtain $data_ref from eval'ed input file that was filtered to look like Perl code by kyle
in thread Obtain $data_ref from eval'ed input file that was filtered to look like Perl code by repellent

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