my $cfg = ReadConfig("./configfilename",qw(someprog02))

############################################################;
sub ReadConfig{
# ReadConfig([full path & filename],[section list])
# this subroutine reads a configuration file and returning a
# reference to a hash containing the key value pairs.  The
# routine will use a full path name if provided or look in
# the current directory for the configuration file.  The
# routine will parse all options or just the options provided
# in the section parameter.  By default, it will include any
# value in the [ALL] section if one is existing.  The config
# reader will process each section in the file in the order 
# passed to it by the list section.  By default, [ALL] will
# be processed first and need not be included in the list 
# unless you want [ALL] to be after some other section.  The
# routine will overwrite any options set in previous sections
# will the option for the current section so that an option
# for pgmdir in the section [someprog01] will overlay the
# pgmdir option set in the [ALL] section (assuming the [ALL]
# section precedes [someprog01] in the config file Note, this 
# reader will capitalize all section headers so case does not
# matter my $infile  = shift;

    my @sect    = @_;
    my %config  = ();
    my %tmpcfg  = ();
    my $line    = '';
    my $valkey  = '';
    my $value   = '';
    my $sectkey = 'ALL';

    if(-e $infile and open(INFILE, "<$infile")){
        while($line = <INFILE>){
            chomp($line);
            $line =~ s/#.*//;     #ignore comments
            $line =~ s/^\s+//;    #delete leading whitespace
            $line =~ s/\s+$//;    #delete trailing whitespace
                                  #skip it nothing is left
            next unless length($line); 
            if($line =~ m/[[](\w+)[\]]/x){
                $sectkey = lc($1);
            }else{
                ($valkey,$value) = split(/\s*=\s*/,$line,2) ;
                $tmpcfg{$sectkey}{lc($valkey)} = $value;
            }
        }
    } 
    unshift @sect, 'ALL';         # prepend 'ALL' section
    foreach $sectkey (map { lc } @sect){
        $config{$_} = $tmpcfg{$sectkey}{$_} foreach (sort keys %{$tmpcfg{$sectkey}});
    }

    return (%config) ? \%config : '' ;
} #end ReadConfig();
############################################################;


__CONFIGFILE__
# test configuration
#
# this is the configuration file for the SOMESYS processing
# system directory entries are relative to basedir unless
# otherwise specified
#

[all]
baseshare=\\UNCDRIVE\DATA\                                 # 
basedir=K:\DataDrive\Development\rel-2_6\


[someprog01]

[someprog02]
workdir=ftpbakprocessing\
seplenopts=0,1,2
reclenopts=770,364,750,344
filelenopts=0,1,2                                           

[someprog03]

[end]