$key is |dbhost| and $value is |localhost.localdomain| or |localhost.localdomain|.
localhost.localdomain
$key is |dbuser| and $value is |user| or |user|.
user

##</code><code>##

Use of uninitialized value in string at ./cache-riding-pages.pl line 26.
Use of uninitialized value in string at ./cache-riding-pages.pl line 27.
Use of uninitialized value in string at ./cache-riding-pages.pl line 28.
Use of uninitialized value in string at ./cache-riding-pages.pl line 29.

##</code><code>##

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
use DBI;

my(%conf);
my $config = "/path/to/conf/config.php";
my($dbh,$sql,$sth,$key,$value);

open(CONF,$config);
while (<CONF>) {
  if(m/\=/ && m/db/){
    ($key,$value) = split(/ \= /,$_);
    chomp($key); chomp($value);
    $key =~ s/\$//;
    $value =~ s/\"//g;
    $value =~ s/\;//;
    $conf{'$key'} = $value;
    print "\$key is |$key| and \$value is |$value| or |$conf{'$key'}|.\n";
    print $conf{'$key'};
  }
}
close CONF;

# values %conf;
# $dbh = ed_connect($conf{'dbhost'}, $conf{'dbname'}, $conf{'dbuser'}, $conf{'dbpass'});
print "$conf{'dbhost'}";
print "$conf{'dbname'}";
print "$conf{'dbuser'}";
print "$conf{'dbpass'}";
# $dbh = connect('localhost', $conf{'dbname'}, $conf{'dbuser'}, $conf{'dbpass'});

exit;
1;

sub ed_connect {
   my($host_name,$db_name,$db_user,$db_pass)=@_;
   my $dsn = "DBI:mysql:host=$host_name;database=$db_name";

   return (DBI->connect($dsn,$db_user,$db_pass),
      {PrintError => 0, RaiseError => 1});
}