Difference between /rl and a log in/out
 

What is the actual difference between reloading your UI, and logging in and out of the game?

I ask this question because I've been re-working on an old addon, and I've managed to get it pretty much to work except for one small detail: my variables save fine when I do a /reloadui but go crazy when I log out and back in.

I am completely mesmerized here, and I really don't understand how that can even happen... I asked some help on the EU forums but no one answered :(

Well actually I have no idea what can cause this. Can you be more precise on what is different?

What I think is that both logout and reloadui save:
- your saved variables
- your macros, frame positions etc (the text non-lua files in WTF/<account>/<maybe even deeper>)

And both on login and on reloadui, the addons and their saved variables are loaded.

Someone with experience of "Load on demand" addons might tell you if reloadui keeps them loaded, which could be a difference.

There might also be events that are triggered on login and not on reloadui.

There might also be (but erhm, it's going a bit far) addonmessages received by other people's addons when they see you coming online... but well that's not what I would call a huge difference :p