diff --git a/gitstatus.sh b/gitstatus.sh
index a834f91..9cff1c4 100755
--- a/gitstatus.sh
+++ b/gitstatus.sh
@@ -5,9 +5,6 @@
 #
 # Alan K. Stebbens <aks@stebbens.org> [http://github.com/aks]
 
-# helper functions
-count_lines() { echo "$1" | egrep -c $3 "^$2" ; }
-
 if [ -z "${__GIT_PROMPT_DIR}" ]; then
   SOURCE="${BASH_SOURCE[0]}"
   while [ -h "${SOURCE}" ]; do
@@ -23,17 +20,27 @@ gitstatus=`LC_ALL=C git status --porcelain --branch`
 # if the status is fatal, exit now
 [[ "$?" -ne 0 ]] && exit 0
 
-num_staged=`count_lines "$gitstatus" "(\?\?|##| )" "-v"`
-num_changed=`count_lines "$gitstatus" ".M"`
-num_conflicts=`count_lines "$gitstatus" "U"`
-num_untracked=`count_lines "$gitstatus" "\?\?"`
+num_staged=0
+num_changed=0
+num_conflicts=0
+num_untracked=0
+while IFS='' read -r line || [[ -n "$line" ]]; do
+  status=${line:0:2}
+  case "$status" in
+    \#\#) branch_line="$line" ;;
+    ?M) ((num_changed++)) ;;
+    U?) ((num_conflicts++)) ;;
+    \?\?) ((num_untracked++)) ;;
+    *) ((num_staged++)) ;;
+  esac
+done <<< "$gitstatus"
 
 if [[ "$__GIT_PROMPT_IGNORE_STASH" = "1" ]]; then
   num_stashed=0
 else
   stash_file="`git rev-parse --git-dir`/logs/refs/stash"
   if [[ -e "${stash_file}" ]]; then
-    num_stashed=`wc -l "${stash_file}" | cut -d' ' -f 1`
+    num_stashed=`wc -l "${stash_file}" | cut -d' ' -f1`
   else
     num_stashed=0
   fi
@@ -67,23 +74,31 @@ elif [[ "$branch" == *"Initial commit on"* ]]; then
 elif [[ "$branch" == *"no branch"* ]]; then
   branch="_PREHASH_`git rev-parse --short HEAD`"
 else
-  IFS="[]" read -ra remote_line <<< "${line[3]}"
-  if [[ "${remote_line[1]}" == *ahead* ]]; then
-    num_ahead=${remote_line[1]:6}
-    remote="${remote}_AHEAD_${num_ahead}"
-  fi
-  if [[ "${remote_line[1]}" == *behind* ]]; then
-    num_behind=${remote_line[1]:7}
-    remote="${remote}_BEHIND_${num_behind}"
-  fi
+  IFS="[,]" read -ra remote_line <<< "${line[3]}"
+  for rline in "${remote_line[@]}"; do
+    if [[ "$rline" == *ahead* ]]; then
+      num_ahead=${rline:6}
+      remote="${remote}_AHEAD_${num_ahead}"
+    fi
+    if [[ "$rline" == *behind* ]]; then
+      num_behind=${rline:7}
+      remote="${remote}_BEHIND_${num_behind# }"
+    fi
+  done
 fi
 
 if [[ -z "$remote" ]] ; then
   remote='.'
 fi
 
-for w in "$branch" "$remote" $num_staged $num_conflicts $num_changed $num_untracked $num_stashed $clean ; do
-  echo "$w"
-done
+printf "%s\n%s\n%s\n%s\n%s\n%s\n%s\n%s\n" \
+  "$branch" \
+  "$remote" \
+  $num_staged \
+  $num_conflicts \
+  $num_changed \
+  $num_untracked \
+  $num_stashed \
+  $clean
 
 exit