string - In bash, how do I count the number of lines in a variable?

Question

I have a variable which has a string stored in it and need to check if it has lines in it:

var=`ls "$sdir" | grep "$input"`

pseudo-code:

while [ ! $var's number of lines -eq 1 ]
  do something

That's my idea on how to check it. echo $var | wc -l doesn't work - it always says 1, even though it has 3.

echo -e doesn't work as well.

Answer 1

Quotes matter.

echo "$var" | wc -l