triviality regarding $# counts

[Ray Andrews <rayandrews@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

    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).