Hi,
I know what you mean. You want to prevent the echo from echoing "null", thus giving the error (same as //echo -a $chr(32)). So you put a - or any text in the echo command, so atleast u don't get the error. I do it often as well, when I'm not sure if I will actually get a result when testing a custom identifier.
However regarding the $address identifier, if the person is in the IAL it should never error, as qwerty pointed out. So if the person is in the IAL, then a - isn't needed, because it will always return the correct result. If the person isn't in the IAL, then it will echo a $null, thus giving the error.
I can only conclude that either the person isn't in the IAL, or he is using a scripted echo alias which is malfunctioning. So he should try it with //!echo instead.
Greets
