Why does bash return the file directory when using a back tick?

Question

I'm running this series of commands

passwd=`wc -l /etc/passwd`

echo $passwd

Returns:

34 /etc/passwd

What do I need to do to this so that it will only show the output of wc -l?

Answer 1

Using awk perhaps ?

$ passwd=$(wc -l /etc/passwd | awk '{print $1}')
$ echo $passwd
32

Using cut, from cut (GNU coreutils)

$ passwd=$(wc -l /etc/passwd | cut -d" " -f1)
$ echo $passwd
32