>>When tracing through my code the locals window shows:
>>ll = .F.
>>but when I hang the cursor over ll in the trace window it shows:
>>ll = "1053104173 "
>
>If the Locals window is showing a different value to the tool tip text in the trace window, then you are looking at two different variables and given the absolutely appalling variable name - my suggestion is to change your fonts to FoxFont and see how many variations of ll l1 1l ii il i1 you have.

The locals window was showing all the variables in scope at the moment. There were no other variables with even the hint of similar name. I even did "display status" and verified that there were no other variables with the same or similar name that might have overlapping scopes.
BTW, I don't ever use those othere variations that you listed. ll stands for local logical. I don't know what l1 would stand for. Sometimes I'll use ll1 and ll2 when I need 2 logical variables at the same time for a very short section of code. I only use them when I need a place holder for a few lines of code (never more that 5 lines). If I need them for more lines then I create a longer name with meaning.

Here's more of my code:

lparameters tcTarget
local ll 
ll = this.oHyperLink.NavigateTo(tcTarget)
if ll
  ll = this.oHyperLink.Wait_Till_Doc_Ready()     
endif
return ll

I verified that before the "local ll", neither the locals window or the tooltip showed a value.
After the "local ll", but before NavigateTo(), both locals and tooltip showed ll = .F.
I verified that NavigateTo() returned .F.

NavigateTo()
......
IF EMPTY(lcTarget)
  RETURN .F.
ENDIF
......

After returning from NavigateTo() but before executing "if ll", locals showed ll=.f. but tooltip showed ll = "10...".

I have been using ll for years and never had any problem.
When I changed the name of the variable my problem disappeared, so I've reached the conclusion that NavigateTo() in the Hyperlink base class had something to do with the problem.