If I have the following line in a bash script, it works fine: CoDescDate=$(awk -F"\t" '{print $22}' $1) If I embed the above line in a function that is within the same bash script, the script seems to hang at the point of invoking the function. pay_ending_date () { CoDescDate=$(awk -F"\t" '{print $22}' $1) } How I'm calling the function: pay_ending_date I don't understand why it works when run directly from the script but doesn't work when embedded inside a function?
