Shell Programming and Scripting

Hi all,

I'm trying to count the fields in a file and I'm not getting back the desired result. I was wondering if anyone can help.

This is the code:

Code:

#!/bin/bash

a=$(awk '{print NF}' foobar)

if [ "$a" = "2" ]
then
echo "this works"
else
echo "no it's $a instead"
fi

The foobar file contains two fields of data and should come back TRUE.

Code:

> this works

But when running the script I get this:

Code:

> ./abc
no it's 2
2 instead

I know this is happening because when running the awk command on it's own it gives this result:

Code:

>awk '{print NF }' foobar
2
2

Is there a way of preventing this output?

Thanks for any responses

/nistleloy