why function variable not working in command substitution inside a function?

Question

im running this in bashrc file

function simplefunc () {
    output=$(ls -1 "$HOME")
    linecount=$(${output} | wc -l)

    echo "${linecount}"
    echo "${output}"
}

getting this error

Desktop: command not found
0
Desktop
Documents
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Public
snap
SoftMaker
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venv
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i tried these too

putting "local" before variable or

# linecount=$(output | wc -l)
# echo "$(${output} | wc -l)"

Answer 1

I think you should change the third line to:

linecount="$(echo "${output}" | wc -l)"
# OR alternatvely:
# linecount="$(wc -l < <(echo "$output"))"