How to check if a ROQL query has returned records in PHP

Content

I have the following query in my PHP custom script

$roql = "SELECT ID, LookupName  FROM Contact WHERE emails.address LIKE '".$email."'";
$result = RNCPHP\ROQL::query($roql)->next();

How can I check if $result has returned any records... some sort of a COUNT function?
Even if it doesnt find any records, $result is still not null, so i need a way to check for an empty result set

thanks

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