[xml-dev] XPath count/contains

hi,

XPath count function counts only the nodes. but what i want to do, is to
count attributes within the certain nodes; as following:


<a>
  <b_id id="1">edd</b_id>
  <b_code>123</b_code>
....
 </a>
 <a>
  <b_id id="3">mike</b_id>
  <b_code>456</b_code>
....
  </a>
 <a>
  <b_id id="3">jack</b_id>
  <b_code>789</b_code>
....
  </a>

if i use
<xsl:value-of select="count(//b_id)"/>
i get result 2
but i would like to count upon the att ID in <b_id>.

so that i get a count for id=1 within <b_id> 1
and count for id=3 within <b_id> 2

I guess XPath doesn't support this. is there anyother solution (without
using any script language).

thank you in advance, Tomaz