[support] changing field tables

I just ran into a Drupal gotcha. Here's the situation. I coded db queries for nodes and blocks using the hard-coded field file_path which is part of the content-type story-image. My queries referenced content_type_story_image.field_story_file_path_value and it was working fine.

However today I added a second content type, fairy-tale-image which as one of its fields uses the existing field file_path. This caused the file_path field to move into its own table, content_field_file_path. Now I've changed the queries but am thinking there must be a more intelligent way I could've done these queries, like going through Drupal's api and not getting caught on this snag.

Can anyone point me in the right direction to learn how to do that?

Marty