custom module classid

When I create custom modules I like to use a separate directory that is not in the DSPC folder.  With version 6.18, I am getting an error because it cannot find the classid file.  After doing a bit of digging I find that line 87 of awe_generate_module is calling classid_lookup.  M.classID=classid_lookup(M.className);  This call does not pass DIR so the test fails and an error is generated. Looking at the header file for classid_lookup it states that if DIR is empty then AWE_INFO.buildControl.modulePath is used.  Since my classids file is not in the paths in AWE_INFO.buildControl.modulePath I wrote the code below to place it there without duplicating my path on subsequent calls to make_myModules.

hit=0;
for i=1:length(AWE_INFO.buildControl.modulePath)
    hit=hit+strcmp(DIR,AWE_INFO.buildControl.modulePath{i});
end
if hit == 0
    AWE_INFO.buildControl.modulePath{end+1}=DIR;
end

Now when I run my make file I get the following error:

Operands to the || and && operators must be convertible to logical scalar values.

Error in classid_lookup

Error in classid_lookup

Error in awe_generate_module (line 87)
        M.classID=classid_lookup(M.className);

Error in awe_generate_library

Error in make_myModules (line 83)
awe_generate_library(MM, DIR, NAME, USESLIB, GENDOC);

My questions are:

1. Is this the best way to communicate my folder path to classid_lookup?  It seems a bit dangerous modifying a global variable.
2. why am I getting the error from inside classid_lookup?