diff --git a/Cantera/src/base/xml.cpp b/Cantera/src/base/xml.cpp
index 8aa6afe53..2ea75093c 100644
--- a/Cantera/src/base/xml.cpp
+++ b/Cantera/src/base/xml.cpp
@@ -835,15 +835,29 @@ namespace Cantera {
   const std::vector<XML_Node*>& XML_Node::children() const { 
     return m_children; 
   }
-
-  // return the number of children
+  //=====================================================================================================================
+  // Return the number of children
   /*
-   *
+   *  @param discardComments Bool indicating whether we should ignore comments in the count. defaults to false
    */
-  int XML_Node::nChildren() const { 
+  int XML_Node::nChildren(const bool discardComments) const { 
+    if (discardComments) {
+      int count = 0;
+      for (int i = 0; i < m_nchildren; i++) {
+        XML_Node *xc = m_children[i];
+        if (!(xc->isComment())) {
+          count++;
+        }
+      }
+      return count;
+    } 
     return m_nchildren;
   }
- 
+  //=====================================================================================================================
+  bool XML_Node::isComment() const {
+    return m_iscomment;
+  }
+  //=====================================================================================================================
   //    Require that the current xml node have an attribute named
   //    by the first argument, a, and that this attribute have the
   //    the string value listed in the second argument, v.
diff --git a/Cantera/src/base/xml.h b/Cantera/src/base/xml.h
index f3063ba9f..3be1378a3 100644
--- a/Cantera/src/base/xml.h
+++ b/Cantera/src/base/xml.h
@@ -472,12 +472,16 @@ namespace Cantera {
      */
     const std::vector<XML_Node*>& children() const;
 
-    //! return the number of children
+    //! Return the number of children
     /*!
-     *
+     * @param discardComments If true comments are discarded when adding up the number of children. 
+     *                        Defaults to false.
      */
-    int nChildren() const;
+    int nChildren(bool discardComments = false) const;
 
+    //!  Boolean function indicating whether a comment
+    bool isComment() const;
+    
     //!    Require that the current xml node have an attribute named
     //!    by the first argument, a, and that this attribute have the
     //!    the string value listed in the second argument, v.