Look, at one particular client I required the installation of a perl module from the CPAN (irrelevant which one, except that it involved the compilation of one or two .xs files). Using a similar "hack" (albeit a hardcoded one, see here), I was able to run the standard 'perl Makefile.PL; ...; make install' sequence to get the thing built and installed (locally at least -- fortunately there was an available compiler, etc.) and to continue working.

The directory containing the alleged "hack" was protected by .htaccess; plus, as soon as the compilation was finished, I 'chmod -x 'ed the script, and later removed it when I was certain I had done everything I needed to do.

dmm

You can give a man a fish and feed him for a day ...
Or, you can teach him to fish and feed him for a lifetime