#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;

use DBI;
use Data::Dumper;

my $Sort = 'bydate';
my %DB;

my $dbh = DBI->connect('DBI:Pg:dbname=tilrman');
my $sth = $dbh->prepare('SELECT name,height,width,date FROM foo');

$sth->execute();
while (my $row = $sth->fetchrow_arrayref()) {
  if ($Sort eq 'byname') {
    $DB{$row->[0]} = [ @{$row}[1, 2, 3] ];
  }
  elsif ($Sort eq 'bydate') {
    $DB{$row->[3]} = [ @{$row}[1, 2, 0] ];
  }
}
$sth->finish();
$dbh->disconnect();

print Data::Dumper->Dump([\%DB], ['*DB']);