Oh well, the way to do this is to follow the instructions on embedding a perl interpreter into a c program, and follow that route. I've seen numerous accounts on how to do this, in fact I think there is a link in the Monk Library.

And yes, C is going to need many more lines of code because C does not handle text processing very well. This doesn't make it a bad language. I'm all for knowing several languages.

Why are you worried about competition?
If you set up a shop, do you worry about competition? Of course. I am using this script to set up a web site and I know that the person is considering setting up a very similar site. I just don't need the competition!

If you are afraid someone is going to steal your ideas, get over it. If it was worth something you would either patent it or not share it.
This program does not use a unique idea, therefore a patent wouldn't be granted. Nor could I afford the fees. That is a completely unplausible option for this.

And yes, C is going to need many more lines of code because C does not handle text processing very well. This doesn't make it a bad language. I'm all for knowing several languages.
I don't really mind how many lines of code the C is. It's likely to be longer than normal anyway as it's machine-generated. The fact is that it is not even compiling. The reason why I don't want to re-write the script in C or anything like that is because I find C programming extremely tedious, and I already have a brilliant working version of the program in Perl.

Thanks for your suggestion about embedding the interpreter. Any more technical details on how to do this?