>I know that, of course.
>
>But type('FieldName')<>'U' would not tell us whether we have a field 'fieldname' in the currently opened alias, if we have a variable with this name.
>
>That's the point I tried to make.
>
>In other words, the above test will only tell us that we may have either a variable or a field name called 'fieldname' while field() will remove ambiguity.

If you expect conflict between a field name and memory variable, always use alias prefix.