Components that extend Records.cfc have built-in methods for finding out about the recordsets that would be returned for given data (sung the "getRecords" method). This is easiest to see by example.
<table entity="Contact">
<field name="ContactType" Label="Type" type="text" Length="20" />
</table>
The "numRecords" (or "numContacts" for our example) method will return the number of records (but not the recordset itself) for the given data.
Example:
<cfset numRedContactTypes = Application.Contacts.numContacts(ContactType="Red")>
The "hasRecords" (or "hasContacts" for our example) method will return a boolean indicating whether or not any records exist for the given data.
Example:
<cfset hasRedContactTypes = Application.Contacts.hasContacts(ContactType="Red")>