Count Total Number of XmlNodes in C#

Question

I'm trying to find a way to get the total number of child nodes from an XmlNode recursively.

That it is to say I want to count all the children, grand children etc.

I think its something like

node.SelectNodes(<fill in here>).Count

but I don't know what the XPath is.

Answer 1

XPath supports something called Axis specifier, so the code you're looking for is

node.SelectNodes("descendant::*").Count

Answer 2

The XPath you are after is:

descendant::node() (1)

or

descendant::* (2)

The first XPath expresion (1) above selects any node (text-node, processing-instruction, comment, element) in the subtree rooted by the current node.

(2) selects any element node in the subtree rooted by the current node.