Okay then! Here is how my AppleScript-invoked perl scripts work. I often put them inside Applescript because this way I can use Drag & Drop or some other nice stuff AppleScript offers.

Note! This example won't work, because I use -e and DATA

property some_user_changeable_config_stuff : "this data
can be changed by the user of the script
usually this is some kind of template, containing
placeholders the perl script will fill later.

Note: The user usually knows nothing about perl but a bit
about AppleScript.

So he will happily be using stuff like @ Quotes % etc.
"

on run
  tell me to open { choose file }
end run

on open some_items
  repeat with this_item in some_items
    if info for this_item is not folder then
      do_stuff_with(this_item)
    end if
  end repeat
en open

on do_stuff_with(an_item)
  do shell script "perl -e " & (quoted form of "
    use strict;
    use warnings;
    
    # read DATA here e.g.:
    my $TEMPLATE;
    { local $/;
      $TEMPLATE= <DATA>;
    }

    # and now process
    while (<>) {
      # do something with the line and the 
      # TEMPLATE
    }
__DATA__" & (ASCII character 10) & some_user_changeable_config_stuff) 
+& " " & (quoted form of POSIX path of an_item)
end do_stuff_with
[download]

Of course I can check the "some_user_changeable_config_stuff" variable that a delimiter I choose isn't contained. I just wanted to avoid this, using __DATA__. So this post isn't a request for help, but just for clarification/explanation.