use strict;
use warnings;

my $str = 'bar|development|/usr/bar/db|/dbdump';

# put the values into individual variables;
my ($db,$host,$dbdir,$dumpdir);
($db,$host,$dbdir,$dumpdir) = split '\|',$str;

# put the values into a hash
my %conf;
(  $conf{'DB'},
   $conf{'HOST'},
   $conf{'DBDIR'},
   $conf{'DUMPDIR'}
) = split '\|',$str;

# print out the hash with 
for (keys %conf) {
   print "$_ => $conf{$_}\n";
}

# Use a hash slice. The %conf hash is given 
# a list of keys. The "=" assigns to each of them in turn
@conf{('DB','HOST','DBDIR','DUMPDIR)} = split '\|',$str;

# put the values into the %ENV hash, where the other 
# environment variables are
@ENV{qw(DB HOST DBDIR DUMPDIR)} = split '\|',$str;