#!/usr/bin/env perl

use 5.010;
use strict;
use warnings;

use List::Util qw{first};

use constant {
    HOUSE  => 0,
    FAMILY => 1,
    EXTERN => 2,
    EXTRAS => 3
};

use constant INDEX => qw{HOUSE FAMILY EXTERN EXTRAS};

my @table;
my %cross;

while (<DATA>) {
    push @table, [ split ];
}

say crosslink(HOUSE, FAMILY, 9);
say crosslink(HOUSE, FAMILY, 9);
say crosslink(FAMILY, HOUSE, 10);
say crosslink(EXTRAS, EXTERN, '8text');
say crosslink(EXTRAS, FAMILY, '8text');
say crosslink(HOUSE, EXTRAS, 12);
say crosslink(HOUSE, EXTRAS, 13);

sub crosslink {
    my ($in, $out, $val) = @_;

    my $key = $in . '-' . $val;

    if (exists $cross{$key}) {
        return $cross{$key}[$out];
    } 

    say 'Search once only:';   # for testing only - remove in production
    my $found = first { $_->[$in] eq $val } @table;

    return 'Not found! ' . (INDEX)[$in] . ": $val" if ! defined $found;

    $cross{$key} = $found;

    return $cross{$key}[$out];
} 

__DATA__
1   2   3   4text
5   6   7   8text
9   10  11  12text
13  14  15  16text

##</code><code>##

$ pm_cross_table.pl
Search once only:
10
10
Search once only:
9
Search once only:
7
6
Search once only:
Not found! HOUSE: 12
Search once only:
16text