Another approach is to just use one of the configuration modules, like perhaps Config::Tiny. This avoids the "execute user editable code" problems of eval and folks are familiar with the format. Its just 2 lines of code for the basics..

#!/usr/bin/perl -w 
use strict;
use Config::Tiny;
use Data::Dumper;

my $Config = Config::Tiny->read( 'configfile.txt') or die " $!";

# $Months here is a ref to a hash
# 
my $Months = $Config->{Months};

print Dumper \$Months;

=prints

$VAR1 = \{
            'Month1' => 'January',
            'Month2' => 'February'
          };
=cut

__END__
#file configfile.txt contains this comment and this data
#Sample Configuration File

[Months]
Month1 = January
Month2 = February

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