Strange variable manipulation failure?

[Fairlight]

Is it just me, or did Fairlight say:
> 
> :'some condition:long_name = mid(long_name,"4","16"):
> 
> Now apparently, what we narrowed this down to is that following that line
> testing true, long_name would be empty, rather than contain the contents of
> the mid().  However, at the same point in time in the debugger, the mid()
> expression would yield the correct data.

I stated that poorly.

On the line above, the condition would test true.  While the debugger was
still on that line, if you tested the mid() as an expression, it would test
true.  Once you were past that line and the THEN segment had been executed,
the variable would then be empty.  

Just wanted to be clear so nobody thought I was misreading the debugger.
I'm aware that the THEN line isn't actually acted upon until after
you've hit return on that line to proceed.

m->