- iterator_count: documentation ( source)
<?php
$XML = <<< XML
<root>
<item>1</item>
<item>2</item>
<item>3</item>
</root>
XML;
$dom = new DomDocument();
$dom->loadXml($XML);
$items = $dom->getElementsByTagName('item');
echo "Count: ".count($items). PHP_EOL;
$it = new IteratorIterator($items);
$c = iterator_count($it);
echo "Count: $c", PHP_EOL;