There are a whole bunch of config modules on CPAN that can work to help you with a default config. I prefer (after being a sysadmin for so many years) Config::ApacheFormat. But I have also successfully used Config::General and Config::Generic. It sounds to me like Config::ApacheFormat would do the trick for you since you can create vars (or data structures) within the config file and its not reinventing the wheel (its using Apache Configuration Format). It also has the capability of doing includes (depending on what you actually mean by includes.