getChildCount() and getChildAt() return zero for RecyclerView

I assume you are calling those methods before layout is calculated.

When you set the adapter, the layout will happen in the next view tree traversal. You can consider adding a ViewTreeObserver.

The function is called when the view is not ready that's why it returns zero, use post() method will help.

myRView.post(new Runnable() {
        @Override
        public void run() {
            Log.show("myRView.post " + myRView.getChildCount());
            View childView = myRView.getChildAt(0);
        }
    });

getChildCount() may return 0 if you forget to set LayoutManager to RecyclerView.

myRView.setLayoutManager(mLayoutManager);

You could use your adapter getItemCount() function.

myRView.getAdapter.getItemCount();