Soliciting user input in request scripts

A tool is provided in the base package for generating full-screen menus for handling user input. This tool is called menu, and should be used when user input is solicited in a request script. Using a form description file (see menu(F)), menu generates a full-screen form that can be used for displaying information, entering a selection from a numbered list, or filling out a more complex, multiple-field form. The menu tool can also contain help text so that a user can get more information about the current step in the installation.

The menu tool output is a file that contains Bourne/Korn shell statements of the form:

VARIABLE="value"

After the user completes the menu, this output file can be read in and executed in the request script using the shell '.' command. The values obtained can be used to generate the response file, the output of the request script.

The menu tool should be used when soliciting user input from the request script. The menu tool can also be used in the postinstall script for a package to inform the user about the status of the installation at completion. (See the manual pages for menu(C) and menu(F) for more information.)