How to know the number of items of a list ?

[Cyril Chevrot]

I want to know how we can know the number of items of a list.
I need to know this number in a loop. So I am oblige to do
2 loop : one to calculate this number, the other to use this
number.
I would like to make only one loop. 
Is it possible ?

-----------------------------
count=0
for var in `ls *`; do
      count=`expr $count + 1`
done
for var in `ls *`; do
      ...
      ... $count ...
      ...
done
------------------------------

Thanks in advance

--
Cyril