Just for the record:
Channel Access has no concept of "records" or "fields". (These are concepts of the EPICS Database.)
In the context of CA, a PV is basically anything that a server will resolve as something that is accessible.
The convenience fallback of using a record's value field if no field is specified is implemented in the EPICS Database - CA is unaware that this is happening.
Consequently, the "<pv_name>" in this thread should rather be "<record_name>", as the related statements apply when connecting to an EPICS IOC Database.
Cheers,
~Ralph