You are here: NI Home > Support > Product Reference > Manuals > LabVIEW 8.5 Help

Use local variables to read or write to one of the controls or indicators on the front panel of a VI.

When you create a local variable, a local variable icon for the object appears on the block diagram. Writing to a local variable is similar to passing data to any other terminal. However, you can write to a local variable even if it is a control or read from a local variable even if it is an indicator. In effect, with a local variable, you can access a front panel object as both an input and an output.