I have occasionally used __DATA__ to hold defaults that will be used in the absence of a config file. It worked out great.

Another strategy is to detect the existance of the config file, and if it doesn't exist, use the contents of __DATA__ to write your default config file. That could be used to create the basic config file in such a way that it is easy to text-edit (and thus to modify) by the person maintaining your scripts installation. The following steps would be taken:

• Check for config file.
• If file exists, open and use it.
• If file doesn't exist, read __DATA__ and write out a config file.
• Use the newly written config file.

This will leave the config file as an artifact of the script's first run. The user can then customize it without having to sift through your source code, possibly ruining something important. ;)