A hash-of-hashes might help (perldsc): 
use warnings;
use strict;

my %results;
my $type;
while (<DATA>) {
    next if m{^/};
    next unless /\S/;

    if (/^TYPE\s(\S+)/) {
        $type = $1;
        $results{$type}{CAUSE } = 'UNDEF';
        $results{$type}{AFFECT} = 'UNDEF';
    }

    if (/^(CAUSE|AFFECT)\s(\S+)/) {
        $results{$type}{$1} = $2;
    }
}

for (sort keys %results) {
    print "$_:$results{$_}{CAUSE},$results{$_}{AFFECT}\n";
}


__DATA__
// HEADER TAG
// VERSION TAG

TYPE VALUE1 EQUALS MAIN
I am useless text
CAUSE FAIL
AFFECT ERROR
ENDTYPE

TYPE VALUE2 EQUALS MAIN
I am useful test
ENDTYPE

TYPE VALUE3 EQUALS MAIN
CAUSE DEGRADED
ENDTYPE

TYPE VALUE4 EQUALS MAIN
AFFECT WARNING
ENDTYPE

[download]

prints: 

VALUE1:FAIL,ERROR
VALUE2:UNDEF,UNDEF
VALUE3:DEGRADED,UNDEF
VALUE4:UNDEF,WARNING

[download]

In reply to Re: File Parsing and Pattern Matching by toolic
in thread File Parsing and Pattern Matching by Mark.Allan

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