So I'm trying to develop a simple voicemail IVR.

In "sounds.xml" there's a nice macro for "voicemail_message_count", but I can't seem to figure out how to get the count to feed it.  Can you help?

I know I can use this to get the count in JSON format:

  count = api:executeString("vm_fsdb_msg_count default default " .. domain .. " " .. extension .. " inbox");

But how do I get a count that I can send to that phrase macro?

Confused.  (And excuse my ignorance).

-----
Ned Ludd