in views row-template, how to obtain rendered output of each item in multi-valued field?
If the field is multi-valued, then $view->render_field($fieldname, $view->row_index) returns a comma-separated string of the individual rendered items:

rendered_item0,rendered_item1,rendered_item2,...


To generate the array $field_output_array where $field_output_array[2] = rendered_item2, explode the string:

$field_output_string = $view-&gt;render_field($fieldname, $view-&gt;row_index);
$separator = ',';
$field_output_array = explode($separator, $field_output_string);