Recursively counting files in a Linux directory

Question

How can I recursively count files in a Linux directory?

I found this:

find DIR_NAME -type f ¦ wc -l

But when I run this it returns

Answer 1

Since filenames in UNIX may contain newlines (yes, newlines), wc -l might count too many files. I would print a dot for every file and then count the dots:

find DIR_NAME -type f -printf "." | wc -c