Implications of widespread "UNASSIGNED" ?

[bukowa]

I've been using Ghidra for analyzing a binary, and after renaming some variables, I noticed that many functions now show UNASSIGNED for several variables in the listing window. This wasn't the case before, and it seems to have affected a large portion of the code.

What are the implications of this and how can this affect my future work on the project?

[gemesa]

I noticed this a while ago as well. In my case it is always related to the return type. If it is undefined then UNASSIGNED is also shown. When I edit the signature and set the return type, it changes from:

                             **************************************************************
                             *                          FUNCTION                          *
                             **************************************************************
                             undefined main()
             undefined         <UNASSIGNED>   <RETURN>
             undefined8        Stack[-0x10]:8 local_10                                XREF[1]:     00407770(W)  
                             main                                            XREF[4]:     Entry Point(*), 0046a850, 
                                                                                          00470e64(*), 0047ffa0(*)  
        00407758 08 03 00 f0     adrp       x8,0x46a000

to:

                             **************************************************************
                             *                          FUNCTION                          *
                             **************************************************************
                             int main(void)
             int               w0:4           <RETURN>
             undefined8        Stack[-0x10]:8 local_10                                XREF[1]:     00407770(W)  
                             main                                            XREF[4]:     Entry Point(*), 0046a850, 
                                                                                          00470e64(*), 0047ffa0(*)  
        00407758 08 03 00 f0     adrp       x8,0x46a000