use Regexp::Assemble;

my $ra = Regexp::Assemble->new->track(1);

my %dispatch = (
  '^(?!START:|END:)([^*: ][^:]+):(.+)\n' => sub {
      my $r = shift;
      process_record($r);  # first time will be empty record...
      %$r = ();            # clear the record
      $r->{name} = $ra->mvar(1);
      $r->{desc} = $ra->mvar(2);
  },
  '^START:\s*(.+)\n' => sub { $_[0]->{starttime} = $ra->mvar(1) },
  '^END:\s*(.+)\n'   => sub { $_[0]->{endtime}   = $ra->mvar(1) },
  '^(?:\* |  )([^:]+):(\d+):(.+)\n' => sub {
    my @captures = @{$ra->mvar()};
    push @{$_[0]->{items}}, [@captures[1..$#captures]],
  },
);

# add all the regular expressions to the R::A object
$ra->add( keys %dispatch );

my $r = {}; # 'record'
LINE: while (my $line = <DATA>) {
  # if we have a match, take the initial regular expression that matched
  # and use it as a key into our dispatch table and call its value.
  $ra->match($line) and &$dispatch{$ra->matched}->($r);
}
process_record($r);