#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
use IO::Scalar;
use Convert::UU qw(uuencode uudecode);
use Archive::Tar;

sub slurp { local $/; my $fh = shift; open FH, $fh; $fh = <FH>; close FH; return $fh; }

my $textfile         = "text";
my $binfile          = "binary";
my $generated_code   = "archive.pl";
my $tarball_name     = "tb.tar";
my $uud_tarball_name = "new.tb.tar";

my $tarball  = Archive::Tar -> new($tarball_name);

$tarball -> add_files ($textfile, $binfile);
$tarball -> write ($tarball_name);

my $uu_data  = slurp ($tarball_name);
my $uue_data = uuencode ($uu_data);

#####
## here we are dealing with the generated file.
# 
open CODE, ">$generated_code" or die "$!";
print CODE << 'CODE_LABEL';
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
# automatically created perl code including UUencoded tarball.
use strict;
use IO::Scalar;
use Convert::UU qw(uuencode uudecode);
use Archive::Tar;

my $encoded_tarball = << 'TARBALL_LABEL';
CODE_LABEL
close CODE or die "not proceeding because we couldnt close CODE\n$!";
#####
## here we have finished writing the initial code segments to
#  the generated file.

{ # because we are localizing $/ we dont want this to escape
  local $/;
  open CODE, ">>$generated_code"
    or die "unable to append to $generated_code : $!";
  print CODE $uue_data;
  close CODE or die "error closing CODE\n$!";
} # we're done being foolish

#####
## we are now re-opening our generated code to append more code
#  to it so it can de-uu and de-tar its file.

open CODE, ">>$generated_code"
  or die "unable to re-open CODE : $!";
print CODE << 'CODE_LABEL';

TARBALL_LABEL

# begin decoding sequence...

my $decoded_tarball = uudecode ($encoded_tarball);

tie *BALL, 'IO::Scalar', \$decoded_tarball;

my $uud_tarball_name = "tarball.decode.tar";
my $new_tarball  = Archive::Tar -> new($uud_tarball_name);

$new_tarball -> extract(\*BALL) 
  or warn "error extract()ing : " . $new_tarball -> error();

CODE_LABEL
__END__