I can find plenty of information about how to assign the exit code of a script to av variable, but I want to do the opposite: use the value of a variable (defined within a script) as the exit code of the script.

For example, I have a script that couunts the number of open files on a specific file system (plus a bunch of other stuff). I want the exit code of the script to be the number of open files, so essentially:

#!/bin/bash

OPENFILES=`lsof /filesystem | wc -l`

exit $OPENFILES

So after the script exits, 'echo $?' will give me the value of $OPENFILES that was defined in the script.

I've tried various permutations of using quotes, parentheses, etc, but come up empty. I feel like what I'm trying to do is either impossible, or so blindingly obvious that I'm overlooking it...