foreach my $name (@names) {
   if ($dbpattern{$name} =~ /$pattern/i or $dbcolor{$name} =~ /$color/i) {
       # print out the record
   }
}

##</code><code>##

$i =0;
while (my $name[$i] = <DBFILE>) {
   chomp $name[$i];
   my $color = <DBFILE>;
   my $pattern =  <DBFILE>;
   my $dbcd = <DBFILE>; 
   chomp ($color, $pattern, $dbcd); #yep, all at once!
   # now go on as before ...
   $i++;
}

##</code><code>##

superpicture|TerraCotta|Offset Brick|5

##</code><code>##

chomp $line;
my @record = split /\|/, $line, 4;
# $record[0] is name, 1 => color 2 => pattern, etc.

##</code><code>##

perl -e 'print "How sweet does a rose smell? "; chomp ($n = <STDIN>); $rose = "smells sweet to degree $n"; *other_name = *rose; print "$other_name\n"'