How to "really" clean out a variable?

[Mr. Bigglesworth]

When I do this:

<$editable_fields_ex = "">
<loop $editable_fields_ex>
hello
</loop>


I get this:

hello


My thought was that by setting the variable in question to "" the loop wouldn't do anything, but it looks like there's at least one built-in loop no matter what?

Or maybe I didn't *really* initialize my variable in the proper format? The idea is to initialize the variable, but in such a way that the <loop> doesn't do anything with it until I say so.

[bart]

To empty a variable do this: <$var=>

Empty string ("") is a legitimate value.