My employers would like me to selectively run one of several different (already-existing) Korn Shell menu-driven scripts out of the user's .profile file, depending on some yet-to-be-specified user critieria.

I've never done this kind of thing, but I have the existing scripts (among other things) to look at.

One of the classic concerns when writing such a login menu is the user's ability or inability to break out of it. I'd read that this is where the shell "trap" command is used to trap signals that would normally break out of the script. But the existing scripts don't do that. Instead I see lines like:

stty susp <undef>
stty quit <undef>

and so forth. This undefines the key sequences for interrupt, suspend, etc.

It seems to me that maybe this is a better approach than the 'trap' command, because it does not disrupt the default (and presumably better-thought-out) handling of signals caused by things other than the user pressing keys.

Does anyone have any experiences/opinions about this? Which is the better approach?

Also, what are the advantages/disadvantages/dangers of actually replacing the user's login shell in the password file with the menu script?

Finally, is there any such thing as a generalized (and presumably compiled) menu shell that takes text files of choices and actions as inputs? I could not find any such thing in via Google.