Using the sample code from the Apex Language reference, I am trying to find out how many Contact records I have:

Integer contactCount = [SELECT COUNT() FROM Contact];

This raises an error "Too many query rows: 501" -- which implies that I cannot get a simple rowcount on tables with more than 500 rows. Is this true? Do I actually have to use a loop and queryMore() to find out how many rows I have in a table?

TIA,

John