>> a public var get's hidden is if you pass it by reference into a procedure or function
>
>This is an insidious (and rather silly) bug, and as far as I can see it is the only way how a global var can be masked out of existence (rather than hidden by symbols with the same name that are closer in scope).
>
>I think there was a whole thread devoted to this bug quite recently, but as I am a non-paying parasite the search feature is disabled and I cannot provide a direct link.

I don't know if I would say that's a bug. It's been that way since FoxPro 2.6. It might even been like that from the begining but FoxPro 2.6 is the oldest FoxPro I have on my system.