How to read output port?

[Altera_Forum]

I need to read state of some output ports in my application.  

In some part of the program I write these ports and in other part I want to read actual state and I wouldn&#39;t like to use special variables to keep the states.  I cannot quite understand the "tristate" meaning in Altera peripheral handbook, but it seems to me that this is what I need. I already have tested it (with first setting the direction of the port to 1 to become tristate) and it seems to be working fine. Since I don&#39;t fully understand the datasheet explanation, can somebody please confirm that I am doing it right and not setting something else, which can eventually cause some problems in my application?  Peripheral handbook says this: <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div>  --- Quote Start ---  Bidirectional (tristate) ports: In this mode, each PIO bit shares one device pin for driving and capturing data. The direction of each pin is individually selectable. To tristate an FPGA I/O pin, set the direction to input.[/b]  --- Quote End ---  

[Altera_Forum]

there are two cases for ports: 

 1. port signals are connected to real in/outputs of fpga  ( i think it&#39;s ok to use tristate signals to read back the setting of   the outputs)  2. port signals are used internal in fpga   (tristate does not make sense, I don&#39;t know if quartus syntesizes  tristate registers away ?)  because I had some signals with case 2 and also wanted to read back the settings of the outputs, i made ports with input and output  (no tristate) and connected in/outputs of these ports together  in the top schematic.  perhaps someone from altera can explain what will happen if i use tristate for internal port signals ?