Reference to freed node equates to true in conditional

[Wabafet]

Godot version

v4.1.1.stable.official [bd6af8e]

System information

Godot v4.1.1.stable - Windows 10.0.19045 - Vulkan (Forward+) - dedicated NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 (NVIDIA; 31.0.15.3623) - AMD Ryzen 7 5800X 8-Core Processor (16 Threads)

Issue description

I have a reference to a node that is then deleted with queue_free() which causes the reference to be set to null. The debugger tells me this reference is now however it still passes an if condition as if it were not null. Directly comparing it to null has the expected result (ie. freed_reference == null -> true) however just testing the reference itself does not (ie. if freed_reference: -> passes).

Steps to reproduce

Add a node to the scene and attach the following script.

extends Node

var freed_node: Node = null

func _ready():
	freed_node = Node.new()

func _process(delta):
	if freed_node != null:
		freed_node.queue_free() #Breakpoint here will be hit one time only, as expected
		return
	if freed_node:
		pass #Breakpoint here should never be hit but is

Minimal reproduction project

N/A

[Calinou]

This is done for performance reasons. Use is_instance_valid(freed_node) to check for validity instead of a direct null check.

[dalexeev]

• See also Inconsistency in boolean validation of [Freed Object] #59816.

[Calinou]

Thanks for the report! Consolidating in #59816.