I need a function that simply counts the number of cells in a range.  Not
based on a condtion, simply the number of cells in a range.

Obviously if I'm doing this once I can simply put in a constant.  (It's easy
to see that the range A1:A50 has 50 cells.)  But I need a formula that will
automatically adjust if the size of the range changes, so that if I insert a
row after A17, the formula will return 51.

As far as I can tell, COUNT, COUNTA, and COUNTIF don't do this.  I suppose I
could use COUNTIF(A1:A50,"<>999"), where 999 is a value that I know will not
appear in the range.

But is there a more straightforward formula?

Thanks.