Hello Monks
I didn't permissons to download CPAN modules..so I came up with the following code
suggest me if anything is wrong

$config = "C:\\Testing\\file.ini";
# check if file exists and can be read
-r $config || die "$config does not exists or is not readable";
open(IN, $config) || die "Cannot open $config for reading: $!";
sub readFile
{
    my $key = "";
    my $value = "";
    # initialize rule storage
    my $source_dir = "";
    my $target_dir = "";
    my @pattern; 
 
    while(<IN>)  # read a line from line into $_
    {
        $line = $_;
        if ( /^(\s*|\;.*|\#.*)$/i )
        {
            # empty line or comment
        }
        elsif ( ($key, $value) = /^\$([A-Z_]+)\=(.+)/ )
        {
            #significant line: $key=$value
            $value = evalValue($value);
            #$key = lc($key);
 
             # look for file attributes
             $source_dir=$value if( $key eq "SOURCE_DIR" );
             $target_dir=$value if ( $key eq "TARGET_DIR" );
             @pattern=$value if ( $key eq "PATTERN" );
        }
    }
}

sub evalValue
{
    my $value = $_[0];
    my $key = "";
    my $result = "";
    my $rest = "";

    $_ = $value;
    $rest = $value;

    while( ($key) = /\$([A-Z_]\w*)/)
    {
        $key_val{$key} || die "Undefined key: $key $!";
        $result = $result . $` . $key_val{$key};
        $_ = $';
        $rest = $';
    }
    $result = $result . $rest;
    return $result;
}
[download]

This way I can read all the values and then process accordingly

Thanks again for suggestions

Sridhar