Nav tag recursive children not passing variable

[miicah]

Bug description

Variables created outside a recursive children nav loop and referenced inside it, 'hold' the original value instead of changing it. I've used letters here as it's a bit easier to see, but in our real code we are using ints; the same issue occurs.

Navigation

My basic 'main' nav I created is here.

Antlers

The actual antler code is basically copy/pasted from the docs and is a simple recursive children loop.

        <nav>
            {{ counter = "z" }}
            
            {{ nav handle="main_nav" }}
                {{ if depth == 1 }}
                    <div class="mx-10">
                        <h3 class="mb-2">{{ title }} - {{ counter }}</h3>
                        {{ if children }}
                            <ul>{{ *recursive children* }}</ul>
                        {{ /if }}
                        
                    </div>
                {{ elseif depth == 2 }}
                    <li class="px-2 my-1">
                        <a href="{{ url }}">{{ title }} - Child of {{ counter }}</a>
                    </li>
                {{ /if }}

                {{ counter += "a" }}
            {{ /nav }}
        </nav>

Result:

Expected result:

How to reproduce

1. Open a nav tag pair
2. Use and then increment a variable
3. Have recursive children
4. The variable used in the recursive children is the original value, not the incremented one

Logs

No response

Environment

Environment
Application Name: Statamic
Laravel Version: 10.18.0
PHP Version: 8.2.8
Composer Version: 2.5.8
Environment: local
Debug Mode: ENABLED
URL: localhost
Maintenance Mode: OFF

Cache
Config: NOT CACHED
Events: NOT CACHED
Routes: NOT CACHED
Views: CACHED

Drivers
Broadcasting: log
Cache: statamic
Database: mysql
Logs: stack / single
Mail: smtp
Queue: sync
Session: file

Statamic
Addons: 0
Antlers: runtime
Stache Watcher: Enabled
Static Caching: Disabled
Version: 4.16.0 Solo

Installation

Starter Kit using via CLI

Antlers Parser

regex (default)

Additional details

No response

[miicah]

I also tried

If your scoped variables have trouble making it through to the next recursion, you can glue them to children like this: {{ recursive children:my_scoped_variable }}.

But this broke the loop entirely.