Storing the output of a command in an array and passing it to another program as arguments

gistfile1.sh

#!/bin/bash
#Create an empty directory
#Save this script as test.sh within it

#create three example files
touch one\ file.txt
touch two.txt
touch three\ files\ here.txt

#Our directory contains 4 files, this script and the example files

IFS=$'\n'  #change the separator to newline only
stuff=( $(ls) ) #put the output of the application into an array


echo "From an array..."
wc -l "${stuff[@]}" #use the array as arguments to wc -l


echo "By hand..." #this exists only to show that it's the same output
wc -l one\ file.txt two.txt three\ files\ here.txt test.sh