How to have only 1 space between a word and a counter

Question

I am using the following counter:

\newcounter{foo}
  \newcommand\num{
    \refstepcounter{foo}
      \thefoo.}

Two (2) spaces are automatically inserted between the preceding word and the counter -- e.g., word \num shows up in the pdf file as word 1.

Is there a way to have just one space between a word and a counter? If possible, I'd like to avoid writing word\num and would prefer to write it like word \num

Answer 1

Comment out spurious blank spaces (one carriage return tantamounts to a blank space) in the definition:

\documentclass{article}
\newcounter{foo}
  \newcommand\num{%
    \refstepcounter{foo}%
      \thefoo.}

\begin{document}

a \num

\end{document}