code: def _get_size_recursive(self, dat):
          
          self.total_records += 1
          #self.total_nodes += 1
          for rec in dat:
              if hasattr(rec, '__iter__') and type(rec) is not str:
                  self._get_size_recursive(rec)
              else:
                  self.total_nodes += 1
                  self.total_length += len(str(rec))
docs: recursively walk through a data set or json file 
          to get the total number of nodes