> Hmm... is there any use case where you want to know the number of directory entries, but you will not iterate 
> over them later?

I agree. 

One more way to iterate over subkeys by name is by using the new odbxx API:


   midas::odb tree("/Test/Settings");
   for (midas::odb& key : tree)
      std::cout << key.get_name() << std::endl;


Stefan