def METHOD_NAME(self, content):
    cols = 0
    for item in content:
        n = 0
        if is_blank(item):
            pass
        elif is_tuple(item):
            (tag, attrs, body) = item
            if tag in ["thead", "tbody", "tfoot"]:
                n = self.METHOD_NAME(body)
            elif tag == "tr":
                n = len(clean(body))
            cols = max(cols, n)
        else:
            self.warning("invalid item in table: %s" % str(item))
    return cols