As dewey said, hashes are the way to go. As long as you remember to check that s/// matched.

Instead of

    my ($var,$val) = /^\s*(.*?)\s*=\s*(.*)/;
    $conf{$var} = $val;
[download]

I'd use

    if (/^\s*(.*?)\s*=\s*(.*)/) {
        $conf{$1} = $2;
    } else {
        die "slowly and painfully";
    }
[download]