Jonathan Scott described a plausible way that the generated code could make sense. This I can believe. Thanks.
FTR, by "deliberately" and "on purpose" I meant that the code wasn't accidentally generated, and that since it's a pretty basic statement, I was assuming that it's boilerplate for "define a variable with initial value x". I.e., someone chose to have it emit that code, as opposed to optimized code which could (and often is) very complex and occasionally (though hopefully not so much these days) outright wrong. (cf. the FORTHX example I mentioned) Thanks to all who responded. ...phsiii
