diff --git a/gitstatus.sh b/gitstatus.sh
index df90245..bb98436 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 "${stash_file}" | cut -d' ' -f 1`
+    num_stashed=`cat "${stash_file} | wc -l`
   else
     num_stashed=0
   fi
@@ -46,7 +53,6 @@ fi
 
 remote=
 
-branch_line=`echo "$gitstatus" | grep "^##"`
 IFS="." read -ra line <<< "${branch_line/\#\# }"
 branch="${line[0]}"