<?xml version='1.0'?>
    <staff>
        <employee>
            ... other nodes in here ...
        </employee>
        <employee>
            ... other nodes in here ...
        </employee>
        <employee>
            ... other nodes in here ...  
        </employee>
        <employee>
            ... other nodes in here ...
        </employee>
        <employee>
            ... other nodes in here ...
        </employee>
    </staff>

#! /usr/bin/perl

# Craig R Morton
# Count number of nodes in an XML document
# Last_Edit: 08-Dec-2006

use warnings;
use strict;
use XML::Simple; # you will need to have this installed on your machine

# read the xml document 'employees.xml' as the input
my $xml = XMLin('employees.xml');

# get the number of nodes called 'employee'
my $count = @{$xml->{employee}}; 

print "We have $count employees\n";