How do I echo $command without breaking the layout

Question

I'm trying to do the following in a bash script:

com=`ssh host "ls -lh"`

echo $com

It works, but the echo will break the output (instead of getting all lines in a column, I get them all in a row).

If I do: ssh host ls -lh in the CLI it will give me the correct output and layout.

How can I preserve the layout when echoing a variable?

Answer 1

You need:

echo "$com"

The quotes make the shell not break the value up into "words", but pass it as a single argument to echo.

Answer 2

Put double quotes around $com:

com=`ssh host "ls -lh"`
printf "%s" $com | tr -dc '\n' | wc -c   # count newlines
printf "%s" "$com" | tr -dc '\n' | wc -c
echo "$com"