What I was attempting to do is exec $conn and pass $instance[$selection] as the parameter. [edited for readability]

Well, you'd need quotes around the whole thing then:

exec "$conn $instance[$selection]"

But it still won't do what you want. The real issue is how the shell uses subprocesses. The actual login shell is executing the .profile, so you could write your menuing code directly into it for the affect you want.

When you spawn perl (or even another shell script,) however, it's a completely different process with its own environment. When you call exec with a single string argument like that, it starts a subshell. You can source a file in that subshell using the shell builtin "." but the results of it won't make it back into the parent (login) shell.

A way around it, if you really feel you must use perl, might be to have perl print the appropriate shell commands and then, in the .profile, you might exec the output that perl gives you. One way or the other though, you've got to either get the login shell to set the environment for you or you have to replace the login shell with another shell that sets the environment appropriately. Both of those options amount to the same thing.

Update: The reply by graff below shows another way of getting the shell to use perl's output to set its own environment. It's a fine solution.

-sauoq
"My two cents aren't worth a dime.";