Title: Walker::get_number_of_root_elements
Published: April 25, 2014
Last modified: April 28, 2025

---

# Walker::get_number_of_root_elements( array $elements ): int

## In this article

 * [Parameters](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/classes/walker/get_number_of_root_elements/?output_format=md#parameters)
 * [Return](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/classes/walker/get_number_of_root_elements/?output_format=md#return)
 * [More Information](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/classes/walker/get_number_of_root_elements/?output_format=md#more-information)
 * [Source](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/classes/walker/get_number_of_root_elements/?output_format=md#source)
 * [Related](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/classes/walker/get_number_of_root_elements/?output_format=md#related)
 * [Changelog](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/classes/walker/get_number_of_root_elements/?output_format=md#changelog)

[ Back to top](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/classes/walker/get_number_of_root_elements/?output_format=md#wp--skip-link--target)

Calculates the total number of root elements.

## 󠀁[Parameters](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/classes/walker/get_number_of_root_elements/?output_format=md#parameters)󠁿

 `$elements`arrayrequired

Elements to list.

## 󠀁[Return](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/classes/walker/get_number_of_root_elements/?output_format=md#return)󠁿

 int Number of root elements.

## 󠀁[More Information](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/classes/walker/get_number_of_root_elements/?output_format=md#more-information)󠁿

Counts the number of top-level items (no children or descendants) in the provided
array, and returns that count.

## 󠀁[Source](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/classes/walker/get_number_of_root_elements/?output_format=md#source)󠁿

    ```php
    public function get_number_of_root_elements( $elements ) {
    	$num          = 0;
    	$parent_field = $this->db_fields['parent'];

    	foreach ( $elements as $e ) {
    		if ( empty( $e->$parent_field ) ) {
    			++$num;
    		}
    	}
    	return $num;
    }
    ```

[View all references](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/files/wp-includes/class-wp-walker.php/)
[View on Trac](https://core.trac.wordpress.org/browser/tags/6.9.4/src/wp-includes/class-wp-walker.php#L420)
[View on GitHub](https://github.com/WordPress/wordpress-develop/blob/6.9.4/src/wp-includes/class-wp-walker.php#L420-L430)

## 󠀁[Related](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/classes/walker/get_number_of_root_elements/?output_format=md#related)󠁿

| Used by | Description | 
| [get_comment_pages_count()](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/functions/get_comment_pages_count/)`wp-includes/comment.php` |

Calculates the total number of comment pages.

  |

## 󠀁[Changelog](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/classes/walker/get_number_of_root_elements/?output_format=md#changelog)󠁿

| Version | Description | 
| [2.7.0](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/since/2.7.0/) | Introduced. |

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