Awk returns different string from what appears to be the exact same?

Question

Hey, this is more of a general awk issue. 
I'm running Arch on an x200 Thinkpad tablet and trying to improve on the rotate script in the wiki.
Currently, the wiki's script has predefined values for the stylus/eraser devices that don't work for all systems (mine for example).  I would like to make it so that these device names are discovered by the script at runtime so that the user doesn't have to edit the script to make it work.
In order to do this, I'm using
stylus="$(xsetwacom --list | grep STYLUS | awk '{$NF="\b"; print}')"
and likewise for the eraser.
The problem is that when the script runs, it says "Cannot find device 'Serial Wacom Tablet stylus'." even though that's the exact thing I had in the script before messing with the variable assignment. 
What makes these strings different? Is there some nuance of awk that I'm missing?

Answer 1

#!/bin/bash
#### rotate.sh - A script for tablet PCs to rotate the display.
## This software is licensed under the CC-GNU GPL.
## http://creativecommons.org/licenses/GPL/2.0/
## http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Tablet_PC
## REQUIRES: linuxwacom (http://linuxwacom.sourceforge.net/)
#### Function(s)
function set_normal {
xsetwacom set "$stylus" Rotate 0
xsetwacom set "$eraser" Rotate 0
xrandr -o normal
function set_right {
xsetwacom set "$stylus" Rotate 1
xsetwacom set "$eraser" Rotate 1
xrandr -o right
function set_left {
xsetwacom set "$stylus" Rotate 2
xsetwacom set "$eraser" Rotate 2
xrandr -o left
function set_inverted {
xsetwacom set "$stylus" Rotate 3
xsetwacom set "$eraser" Rotate 3
xrandr -o inverted
#### Variable(s)
orientation="$(xrandr --query --verbose | grep connected | grep -v dis | awk '{print $5}')"
eraser="$(xsetwacom --list | grep ERASER | awk '{$NF="\b"; print $0}')"
stylus="$(xsetwacom --list | grep STYLUS | awk '{$NF="\b"; print $0}')"
#### Main
if [ "$orientation" = "normal" ]; then
set_right
elif [ "$orientation" = "right" ]; then
set_inverted
elif [ "$orientation" = "inverted" ]; then
set_left
elif [ "$orientation" = "left" ]; then
set_normal
fi
#### EOF
Like I said, a slight modification of the original wiki script. 
xsetwacom --list returns
Serial Wacom Tablet stylus STYLUS
Serial Wacom Tablet eraser ERASER
Edit:
I whipped up a short script to illustrate my problem
#! /bin/bash
therightthing="Serial Wacom Tablet stylus"
stylus="$(xsetwacom --list | grep STYLUS | awk '{$NF="\b"; print}')"
if [ "$therightthing" = "$stylus" ]; then
echo "Equal"
else
echo "Not Equal"
echo "$stylus |"
echo "$therightthing |"
fi
The vertical line is my check for trailing whitespace.  When run, it returns that they're not equal, but the strings look the exact same.
Output:
Not Equal
Serial Wacom Tablet stylus |
Serial Wacom Tablet stylus |
Last edited by Pursuit (2010-09-27 23:05:39)