Linux removing space in an echoed statement

Question

I am trying to create a script for a class and I am having a problem with my user count line. I cannot figure out how to move the 2 closer to the string. Below is what it looks like and my code is below that!

[root@testit /root]# ./syswatch
Free/Total Memory : 261/320  MB
Free/Total Swap : 259/259 MB
User count is at       2 


#!/bin/sh
#
# Syswatch       Shows a variety of different task based on my Linux System
#
# description:   This script will first check the percentage of the filesystem
#                being used. If the percentage is above ___, the root user will
#                be emailed. There will be 4 things echoed in this script. The
#                first thing being the amount of free/total memory being used,
#                second the amount of free/total swap space being used, the
#                third is the user count, and the last thing is the amount
#                of time that the system has been up for and the system load.

#Prints amount of Free/Total Memory and Swap

free -t -m | grep "Total" | awk '{ print "Free/Total Memory : "$4"/"$2"  MB";}'
free -t -m | grep "Swap" | awk '{ print "Free/Total Swap : "$4"/"$2" MB";}'

#Displays the user count for the system

echo "User count is at `who | wc -l`"


exit 0

Answer 1

You can control the format well with printf

printf "User count is at %d\n" $(who | wc -l)

Note that I replaced the backticks with $(). This is primarily a style decision, but many (myself included) will argue that backticks are a horrible, horrible thing best relegated to the past.

Answer 2

I don't have free so I can't test it but try this:

free -t -m |
awk -v who="$(who)" '
/Total/ { printf "Free/Total Memory : %s/%s MB\n", $4, $2 }
/Swap/  { printf "Free/Total Swap : %s/%s MB\n", $4, $2 }
END { print "User count is at", gsub(/\n/,"",who) }
'