When selected, the scope in which TotalView looks for a variable is fixed as being the scope that existed when it displayed the Variable Window.

The Variable Window that TotalView creates contains information that allows TotalView to determine the scope in which a variable is valid. That is, the value that TotalView displays is locked to this scope. If a variable with the same name exists in another scope, TotalView will not display this second variable in the displayed Variable Window because its scope differs. For example, many programs reuse the variable i as the loop counter. A second example are the stack variables contained within recursive routines. In this case, each instance of the variable is locked to a different instance of the stack frame.

This behavior, which is the default, occurs when this command’s button is selected. If you would like the scope to vary, select the View > Compilation Scope > Floating command.