#!/usr/local/bin/perl -w
use strict;
$|++;

use FileHandle;

my $path = "/path/to";
my $database = "database";
my $DATABASE = new FileHandle;

## what are these? what are they initialized to?
my ($m, $p, $r, $s, $p);

open ($DATABASE,"< ", $path/$database") 
	or die("ERROR: cannot open database $path/$database! $!");

while(<DATABASE>) {
	my $rec = $_;
	chomp($rec);

	## not good variable names, be descriptive
	my ($a, $b, $c, $d, $e, $f) = split(/\|/, $rec);
	if ($s =~ /$d/g) {
		if ($r =~ /$e/g){
			if ($m =~ /$fa/g){
				print "$b\n";
				if ($c eq "Y"){
				    print "$a - tal\n";
				}
				if ($p eq "Y"){
				    print "$e";
				}
			}
		}
		## ... do more stuff
	}
	## ... do more stuff
}

close($DATABASE) 
	or die("ERROR: cannot close database $path/$database! $!");