sub prompt_read 
{
    my $prompt = shift; 
    print $prompt;
    
    my $response = <STDIN>;
    $response =~ s/^\s*|\s*$//g;                                      
    return $response;            
}

Note: these "standard idioms" can be used, but with
recent Perl's the more complex regex above is slightly faster.

$response =~ s/^\s*//;  # these 2 statements do the same
$response =~ s/\s*$//;  # but slightly slower