Shell Programming and Scripting

It's not being run as root but it is using IDs that have been configured with a trusted user status that permits communication between the servers without password prompts.

What is the output of set (or env) from inside the script and on the command line - any diffs?

A comparison of ENV from inside the script and the command line show no differences.

Post the output of cat -vet on your script...I'm leaning towards control characters embedded in your script.

Code:

cat -vet script

I found something interesting just now. I thought that perhaps the problem was with the AWK command. I don't use it much and it always seems to give me a hard time so I'm naturally skeptical of it.

So I took it out and replaced it with a grep command. Grep won't do what I need because it can't sort columns based on a delimiter but it's close enough to test this problem with. The new line was now:
su userID -c
remsh server -l userid -n grep SMITH /tmp/infromational/version74b/LIVE/TEMPORARY/ABCfiles/HLC_Database_File.bat|head -1 > /tmp/variant/45BV32/var/store13.logfnd

Now, at first this still hung until I changed the whole thing to a single line:
su userID -c "remsh server -l userid -n grep SMITH /tmp/infromational/version74b/LIVE/TEMPORARY/ABCfiles/HLC_Database_File.bat|head -1" > /tmp/variant/45BV32/var/store13.logfnd

That worked but I can't seem to make it the same when I use AWK because AWK requires quotes around itself that grep doesn't and remsh when used on the same line as the SU command requires quotes around itself as well. So it ends up looking like this:
su userID -c "remsh server -l userid -n "awk -F^ '\$4 == \"SMITH\"' /tmp/infromational/version74b/LIVE/TEMPORARY/ABCfiles/HLC_Database_File.bat|head -1"" > /tmp/variant/45BV32/var/store13.logfnd

but that many quotes just do not work in the script.
su: illegal option -- F
su: illegal option -- ^
-F^: bad option(s)

And if I remove the quotes from around the AWK command I get this error:
syntax error The source line is 1.
The error context is
>>> == <<<
awk: Quitting
The source line is 1.

And if I remove the quotes from around the remsh call instead I get this error:
su: illegal option -- l
su: illegal option -- n
usage: remsh host [ -l login ] [ -n ] command

The result of cat -vet are as follows:
su userID -c$
remsh server -l userid -n "awk -F^ '\$4 == \"SMITH\"' /tmp/infromational/version74b/LIVE/TEMPORARY/ABCfiles/HLC_Database_File.bat|head -1" > /tmp/variant/45BV32/var/store13.logfnd$

So no control characters but you seem to have isolated fault with awk command. I have made minor tweaks to it in red. Removed backslash in \$4 and the ones in \"SMITH\".

Code:

su userID -c \
"remsh server -l userid -n "awk -F^ '$4 == "SMITH"' /path/to/input/file | head -1"" > output_file