Your first solution is more inline with what I thought would need to be done, some kind of length interrogation, and very readable as well.

I am somewhat lucky in that the data being pulled will have a max length of 37 as that was the max length of the various fields used to build the free form address. The source of those fields won't change anytime soon without a overhaul of our current systems.

To your point though a check like that can never hurt, thanks for that.