Ive tried using backticks I think its not interpreting the $server variable. in this test script its fine 
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
use diagnostics;
use Data::Dumper;
my $server="rprint1";
my $num = qx{/usr/bin/lpstat -h $server -W not-completed|wc -l};
print Dumper "$num";


my $server1='rlinux1';
my $num2 = qx{/usr/bin/lpstat -h $server1 -W not-completed|wc -l};
print Dumper "$num2";

[download]
produces 
$VAR1 = 'rprint1';
$VAR1 = '2
';
$VAR1 = 'rlinux1';
$VAR1 = '3
';

[download]
but from the original script 
print Dumper "$server";
      my $server_num_jobs = qx{/usr/bin/lpstat -h $server -W not-compl
+eted|wc -l};
      print Dumper "$server_num_jobs";

[download]
produces 
$VAR1 = 'rprint1'; $VAR1 = '0 ';
$VAR1 = 'rlinux1'; $VAR1 = '0 ';

[download]

In reply to Re^2: Number of lines from a system call by tcf03
in thread Number of lines from a system call by tcf03

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