title: SQL query to scalar result in C#
body: <p>In some programming contexts getting a scalar value from a sql query is easy:</p>
  
  <pre><code>RowCount = Connection.Execute("SELECT Count(*) FROM TableA").Fields(0).Value
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>In C#, given a SqlConnection variable <code>conn</code> that is already open, is there a simpler way to do this same thing without laboriously creating a SqlCommand, a DataReader, and all in all taking about 5 lines to do the job?</p>