It looks like in my simple testing based upon your example, declaring the object LOCAL within the called function seems to work as expected, avoiding the conflict. I'll have to look more carefully at my production code to make sure I declared as local all the objects within functions.

Thanks to both of you for the response.

>Hi Michel,
>
>I don't see this in my test. What I'm doing differently? Running VFP8SP1.

oRec = Null
>=f1()
>RETURN
>
>FUNCTION f1
>*LOCAL oRec
>CREATE CURSOR testxx1 (ii1 int, cc1 char(2))
>INSERT INTO testxx1  VALUES(1, "#1")
>SCATTER NAME oRec
>? oRec.ii1, oRec.cc1
>=f2()
>? oRec.ii1, oRec.cc1     && oRec object wasn't changed after call to f2()
>RETURN
>
>FUNCTION f2
>LOCAL oRec
>CREATE CURSOR testxx2 (ii1 int, cc1 char(2))
>INSERT INTO testxx2  VALUES(2, "#2")
>SCATTER NAME oRec
>RETURN
>

>>I have an application which creates an object (SCATTER NAME) which then calls a function which happens to create an object by the same name. The function destroys the object before returning.
>>
>>I was expecting that by defining the object as LOCAL or PRIVATE within the function, it would not clobber the identically named object in the calling function. I appear to be wrong because the object in the calling program is getting clobbered by the one in the function.
>>
>>Either I'm not understanding how to properly scope the object in the calling and called function, or objects behave differently than other variables.
>>
>>Can someone shed light?
>>
>>TIA