How big can an edit be before it exceeds its boundries

[Tom Pancero]

Greetings,

I have a very complex edit that was authored by Bob Snapp many years ago.
Its function is to enforce certain US Postal Service rules on the data 
in an
ADDRESS field.  This edit has worked perfectly for more than 8 years.

I have the edit assigned to the "Address" field in the map file and it 
works,
as expected, in the $CLERK mode.

If I try to assign the 'AD' edit to a dummy variable (Long, or Short name)
The edit does not seem to function at all.  It still works fine when it 
is in a
'real' field but not as a 'dumy'

The edit is 83 lines long and is in the 'maillist' directory, not the 
Global.
 
Is there an 'upper limit' to an edit where it overflows its boundries?

What could be the difference in how Filepro handles an edit assigned to
a Real field or a Dummy variable?

Filepro 5.0.11  Red Hat 8

cheers