Initializing a local variable’s contents to a global variable will result in changes to the local variable being copied over to the global variable.
does not seem to occur as long as the variables are not directly set to each other
Are you dealing with lists?
The list value is a pointer to the head of the list, so a local and a global variable could be pointing to the same data.
If in doubt, use the copy list block to insure separation.
Proof:
This is also true of dictionaries. Lists, dictionaries, and components are accessed by reference, every other data type is accessed by value.