Another way to find the primary server for a zone

[ELISABETH.CHORQUES at ALCATEL.FR]

 Hello!
I work with Bind 8.2.3 
I have read that to find the primary server for a zone, we have to read the 
"SOA" record for the zone and to check if the name of the server is given in the
first field of the record like that:
 dom.name.zone   12H  IN SOA  ns.dom.name.zone
 The DNS whose name is "ns" is declared primary for the zone "dom.name.zone".

So, my question is:
 can we read the named.conf file instead of the SOA record and check the 
declaration of the zone ? If the zone is declared "master" in this file, is it 
satisfactory to say that the DNS is primary for the zone ?

Thank you very much at advance for your answers.
 E.Chorques
Alcatel
France