/home/myusername/somewebsite/prod/cgi-bin /home/myusername/somewebsite/prod/lib /home/myusername/somewebsite/prod/templates #### my ($prefix,$website,$environment,$basedir); BEGIN { $prefix = '/home/myusername'; $website = 'somewebsite'; use FindBin qw($RealBin); if ($RealBin =~ m!$prefix/$website/(dev|test|prod)/cgi-bin!) { $environment = $1; # This is now untainted! $basedir = "$prefix/$website/$environment"; } else die "Bad or no environment '$1'"; } use lib "$basedir/lib"; my $tt = Template->new({INCLUDE_PATH => "$basedir/templates"}); ...;