If you're looking to use a fairly standard formatted config file (rather than one with "my" variables), but instead something along the lines of

[mysection]
  somevar = value
[download]

You might try Config::IniFiles

use Config::IniFiles;
my $config_data = new Config::IniFiles( -file => $config_file ) or die
+("Cannot read $config_file");
$myvar = $config_data->val('mysection', 'somevar', 'defaultvalue');
[download]