Bug? : Terminal is MIA

[LDHGE]

LabView 2009 SP1.

I've been having some problems with a corrupt value in my project and have eventually tracked it down to having property nodes and references to an indicator that doesn't exist any more - or at least, the terminal is missing. 

After playing with it for a while, I've found I can reproduce it quite simply.  Create a control (boolean in this case).  Create property nodes or references to this control.  Create a Control RefNum and drag the control onto the RefNum.   

Local variables pointing to the original control correctly revert to empty, but existing property nodes or references remain as they were with no indication that the object no longer exists. 

Linking a new property node to the refnum gives a reference value as expected.

Not difficult to fix now I know the problem, but wasted several hours tracking it down.

[smercurio_fc]

Interesting behavior. What's more interesting is that if you try to set a property value (like the Disabled property) on this phantom control, the property node generates no error.

[RavensFan]

That is interesting.  I don't know whether that is a bug or not.  If it is, would it be because those shortcut menu items have been disabled, or because the property node was left behind whereas the local variable is cleared?

I noticed that if you choose Find Control, the "invisible" control blinks from the space behind the refnum control.  If you right click the refnum and choose "Show Control", then you can drag the control out of the Refnum container and it is now attached to the property node again.

Part of me thinks that it is not a bug because of this because the control essentially still exists on the FP, so it still  has properties (and methods associated with it), it's just that the control is now embedded in another container, and some of those properties and methods might not have any relevant meaning in a run-time sense anymore, but the object still actually exists, and it doesn't have a terminal because it is no longer a stand-alone control.

[LDHGE]

If it was deliberate behaviour to be able to have property nodes looking at the items contained in the reference, I'd expect to be able to create them (via link-to for example) but I can't see any way to do that.  The "link-to" menu doesn't show anything selected for these nodes, and if you try, you can only connect to the reference container, not the contained control.

Also if it was a valid object it would still be possible to use it and I wouldn't have had the corruption issues that led me to find it.   Unless I have another bug somewhere else of course .....