>
>If I may ask you a follow up question, please.
>
>If I wanted to simply know how many records in a table matching some WHERE clause, and I want it as fast as possible (and then close the table), and I don't know how many records are in the resulting query (could be 1 or could be 1000 but probably not more than 1000), would your answer, "it depends" still apply?

I'm not sure I uderstand your question. Anyway, why don't you use

SELECT COUNT(*) WHERE < condition > INTO ARRAY laCount
* or 
COUNT FOR < condition >

?