How to count custom taxonomy posts in wordpress walker

Ok, I used a different method. Rather than try to do this the hard way, I used this code in my sidebar php file. ‘careerstax’ is my taxonomy and ‘career-listings’ is my parent category for the ‘careers’ post_type.

Hope this helps someone else.

$args = array( 'hide_empty=0','orderby=count' );
	$terms = get_terms( 'careerstax', $args );

	if ( ! empty( $terms ) && ! is_wp_error( $terms ) ) {
		$count = count( $terms );

		$parenttermtogetid = get_term_by( 'slug',  'career-listings',  'careerstax'  );
        $term_id = $parenttermtogetid->term_id;
		$taxonomy_name = 'careerstax';
		$termchildren = get_term_children( $term_id, $taxonomy_name );
		$term_list="";

		foreach ( $termchildren as $child ) {

			$term = get_term_by( 'id', $child, $taxonomy_name );

			 $args = array(
			  'post_type'     => 'careers', //post type, I used 'product'
			  'post_status'   => 'publish', // just tried to find all published post
			  'posts_per_page' => -1,  //show all
			  'tax_query' => array(
				'relation' => 'AND',
				array(
				  'taxonomy' => 'careerstax',  //taxonomy name  here, I used 'product_cat'
				  'field' => 'name',
				  'terms' => array( $term->name )
				)
			  )
			);

			$query = new WP_Query( $args );

			$termcount = (int)$query->post_count;

			$term_list .= '<li class="list-group-item"><a href="' .
			get_term_link( $term ) . '">' .
			$term->name . '<span class="badge pull-right">'.
			$termcount.'</span></a></li>';	 

		}
		echo '<div class="sideblock"><h3>Available Jobs by Department</h3><ul style="list-style-type:none;" id="menu-careersmenu" class="list-group">';
		echo '<li class="list-group-item"><a href="../careerstaxonomy/career-listings/">All Career Postings </a></li>';
		echo $term_list;
		echo '</ul></div>';

	}

I also then put this into a widget to be used.

// Creating the widget
class careers_dept_list_widget extends WP_Widget {

function __construct() {
parent::__construct(
// Base ID of your widget
'careers_dept_list_widget', 

// Widget name will appear in UI
__('Careers Listings Widget', 'careers_widget'), 

// Widget description
array( 'description' => __( 'Career Department Listings, this widget pulls from the career-listings top level career category.', 'careers_widget' ), )
);
}

// Creating widget front-end
// This is where the action happens
public function widget( $args, $instance ) {
$title = apply_filters( 'widget_title', $instance['title'] );

// This is where you run the code and display the output

$args = array( 'hide_empty=0','orderby=count' );
	$terms = get_terms( 'careerstax', $args );

	if ( ! empty( $terms ) && ! is_wp_error( $terms ) ) {
		$count = count( $terms );

		$parenttermtogetid = get_term_by( 'slug',  'career-listings',  'careerstax'  );
        $term_id = $parenttermtogetid->term_id;
		$taxonomy_name = 'careerstax';
		$termchildren = get_term_children( $term_id, $taxonomy_name );
		$term_list="";

		foreach ( $termchildren as $child ) {

			$term = get_term_by( 'id', $child, $taxonomy_name );

			 $args = array(
			  'post_type'     => 'careers', //post type, I used 'product'
			  'post_status'   => 'publish', // just tried to find all published post
			  'posts_per_page' => -1,  //show all
			  'tax_query' => array(
				'relation' => 'AND',
				array(
				  'taxonomy' => 'careerstax',  //taxonomy name  here, I used 'product_cat'
				  'field' => 'name',
				  'terms' => array( $term->name )
				)
			  )
			);

			$query = new WP_Query( $args );

			$termcount = (int)$query->post_count;

			$term_list .= '<li class="list-group-item"><a href="' .
			get_term_link( $term ) . '">' .
			$term->name . '<span class="badge pull-right">'.
			$termcount.'</span></a></li>';	 

		}
		echo '<div class="sideblock"><h3>'.$title.'</h3><ul style="list-style-type:none;" id="menu-careersmenu" class="list-group">';
		echo '<li class="list-group-item"><a href="../careerstaxonomy/career-listings/">All Career Postings </a></li>';
		echo $term_list;
		echo '</ul></div>';

	}

}

// Widget Backend
public function form( $instance ) {
if ( isset( $instance[ 'title' ] ) ) {
$title = $instance[ 'title' ];
}
else {
$title = __( 'New title', 'careers_widget' );
}
// Widget admin form
?>
<p>
<label for="<?php echo $this->get_field_id( 'title' ); ?>"><?php _e( 'Title:' ); ?></label>
<input class="widefat" id="<?php echo $this->get_field_id( 'title' ); ?>" name="<?php echo $this->get_field_name( 'title' ); ?>" type="text" value="<?php echo esc_attr( $title ); ?>" />
</p>
<?php
}

// Updating widget replacing old instances with new
public function update( $new_instance, $old_instance ) {
$instance = array();
$instance['title'] = ( ! empty( $new_instance['title'] ) ) ? strip_tags( $new_instance['title'] ) : '';
return $instance;
}
} // Class ends here

// Register and load the widget
function careers_load_widget() {
	register_widget( 'careers_dept_list_widget' );
}
add_action( 'widgets_init', 'careers_load_widget' );

Closed