Programming :: Fetching Return Value From Shell Script?

from paul's reply in the link (http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...c-code-181152/) , I am trying to retrieve the count from a shell script using option 1: below is the system call that I have used to call my shell script named "test"

Code:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
int main()
{
int i;
i=system("./test 1234");

[Code]...

Here "test" is the shell script that is fetching the count from a table for a particular column("1234") that I am passing as the parameter. When the "test" script alone is run, it is returning the correct count but when trying to check through the C program it's returning some different value. How can I get the exact value from the script in my program above?