triviality regarding $# counts

[Ray Andrews <rayandrews@eastlink.ca>]

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This practice text is in a variable 'temp' and I want to count the 
number of lines inside a function that will also print the text exactly 
as shown, and do a bunch of other stuff.

--------------------------------------------------------------------
xz-utils:
/usr/bin/xzgrep
/usr/share/man  /de/man1/xzgrep.1.gz    # Hafta be careful not to split 
here.
/usr/share/man  /ko/man1/xzgrep.1.gz    # ... or here.
/usr/share/man/man1/xzgrep.1.gz
/usr/share/man/pt_BR/man1/xzgrep.1.gz
/usr/share/man/ro/man1/xzgrep.1.gz
/usr/share/man/uk/man1/xzgrep.1.gz
/usr/bin/xzegrep
/usr/bin/xzfgrep
/usr/share/man/de/man1/lzegrep.1.gz
/usr/share/man/de/man1/lzfgrep.1.gz
/usr/share/man/uk/man1/xzegrep.1.gz
/usr/share/man/uk/man1/xzfgrep.1.gz

zsh-common:
/usr/share/doc/zsh-common/examples/Functions/zpgrep
/usr/share/zsh/functions/Completion/Debian/_grep-excuses
/usr/share/zsh/functions/Completion/Unix/_grep
/usr/share/zsh/functions/Completion/Unix/_ngrep
/usr/share/zsh/functions/Completion/Unix/_pgrep

zstd:
/usr/bin/zstdgrep
/usr/share/man/man1/zstdgrep.1.gz
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This works: (Again, this is deep in a function and I have to use eval.)

     output=$( eval "$@" )   # '$@' will expand to 'print -l $temp' 
which is the text above.
     temp=( $( eval $@ ) )    # To get the correct count I need to force 
an array.
     linecount=$#temp
     print -rl -- $output
     print  $linecount

Various experiments trying to get the correct linecount (23) *and* get 
it printing correctly all end up with waterboarding problems. If I do it 
in two stages as above, it's ok, but is seems very clumsy.  Different 
efforts at quoting or using ' ${(@f) ....} ' and various other tricks 
yield me a linecount of 1, 3, 23, 25, 26, or 738.  And output that 
deletes the blank lines, or forces everything into one 'line/element'.  
Basically I need the array form to to get the line count, but it won't 
print properly as an array.  Not that it's worth much trouble, but is it 
possible to get the variable  to print correctly *and* show the count of 
lines without having to eval it twice?  schematically:

     output=????$( eval ???)??? # Whatever the correct code might be.
     linecount=$#output
     print -rl -- $output
     print  $linecount

... as it is, it seems that '$#' never counts the lines of output as it 
actually prints.  In practice it's hardly a problem but still it bothers 
me.  '$#' seems mostly to want to count characters (738).



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