simple test.

$ cat ./erlp
#!/usr/bin/perl
# dump arguments one per line.
print join("\n", @ARGV),"\n";

$ cat ./ejabberdctl
#!/bin/sh
# call argument dumper 'erlp'
exec ./erlp -noinput -sname ejabberdctl -s ejabberd_ctl -extra $@

$ ./ejabberdctl ejabberd2@localhost add-rosteritem badlop localhost bob localhost "'Bob Smith'" workers both
-noinput
-sname
ejabberdctl
-s
ejabberd_ctl
-extra
ejabberd2@localhost
add-rosteritem
badlop
localhost
bob
localhost
'Bob
Smith'
workers
both

problem is in argument expansion. need '"' around $@

$ cat ./ejabberdctl_fix
#!/bin/sh
# call argument dumper 'erlp'
# added '"' around $@
exec ./erlp -noinput -sname ejabberdctl -s ejabberd_ctl -extra "$@"

$ ./ejabberdctl_fix ejabberd2@localhost add-rosteritem badlop localhost bob localhost "'Bob Smith'" workers both
-noinput
-sname
ejabberdctl
-s
ejabberd_ctl
-extra
ejabberd2@localhost
add-rosteritem
badlop
localhost
bob
localhost
'Bob Smith'
workers
both

I changed my ejabberdctl script to reflect the changes you mentioned and that works fine. Now I have created a bash script to modify all of the user's rosters so the names show as a regular name instead of the usernames. If I only run the single line as you did above it works fine, but when I run it for each user one after another the aliases keep disappearing for the previous users. So for example:

I run: ./ejabberdctl2 ejabberd2@localhost add-rosteritem badlop localhost bob localhost "'Bob Smith'" workers both

Then I would run: ./ejabberdctl2 ejabberd2@localhost add-rosteritem paul localhost badlop localhost "'badlop lastname'" workers both

But when it is run that second time it fills out the roster perfectly for the user paul, but it removes the previously added alias for paul on the badlop user's profile. So what ends up happening is the last user in my bash script has all the aliases correctly displayed.. but the first user in the bash script has none of them. Of course all the users in between have a progressively larger and larger list of correct aliases as you get towards the end of the bash script. Here is the script I'm using to do this.. but it happens whether I use the script or not.

ANY help would really be appreciated.. hope some of this makes sense to you all.

#!/bin/bash

# combined.txt is in the form: john.smith "'John Smith'" Tech
# with each user being on it's own separate line

# Cycle through the # of users as read from the file
for (( j = 1; j <= `wc -l combined.txt |awk '{print $1}'`; j++ ))
do

# grab $j line in file and assign username to variable
username=`cat -n combined.txt |grep $j -m 1 |awk '{print $2}'`

echo "Modifying roster for:" $username

for (( k = 1; k <= `wc -l combined.txt |awk '{print $1}'`; k++))
do

# assign username, full name and department to variables
nametoadd=`cat -n combined.txt |grep $k -m 1 |awk '{print $2}'`
nameinquotes=`cat -n combined.txt |grep $k -m 1 |awk '{print $3 " " $4}'`
department=`cat -n combined.txt |grep $k -m 1 |awk '{print $5}'`

./ejabberdctl2 "ejabberd@localhost add-rosteritem $username server.domain.com $nametoadd server.domain.com $nameinquotes $department none"

echo "...added:" $nametoadd
done
done