Flowxml refers to deleted variables

In the developer, I copied a flow service, dropped records in the pipeline and added new records. When i open the flow.xml file of this service, i still see references to the pipeline variables that i dropped which i dont see in the developer. Is this the way flow.xml works or am i missing something ?

Thanks in advance
DG

correction… i deleted the records and not dropped. pls read dropped as deleted

Yes, I have also noticed that. Some of the deleted references remain in the flow.xml file. But they definitely do not cause any problems as developer ignores them.