ASerge: like I said at the top of the issue, I was only interested in the scoping issue. I knew the logic sucked bilge water; I never have really got my hands around recursion though I have used it quite a bit (making the same mistakes repeatedly.) I really do appreciate your efforts.
I claim old age as the cause.
(Unfortunately, there is no emoji with grey hair.)
Jamie: Thank you for your help. I did put the {+H} compiler directive at the top of the project file. At the point in the file that I was working when I bumbled onto this issue, I had no long strings but later I have to bundle the "discovered" words in order to send them to a stored procedure to check validity.
I didn't send the word file (which is the data in the database table) because of its size. It is easy enough to get; it is the word list that ships with Linux.
The table has just one column, I called it "word" and it is varchar(45).
I think that is all missing; I believe I have all the source in one directory; if not, please tell me.