In D7 how do I get JUST the value of a field in a view field template? This is at the top of the template file:

/**
 * @file
 * Default simple view template to all the fields as a row.
 *
 * - $view: The view in use.
 * - $fields: an array of $field objects. Each one contains:
 *   - $field-&gt;content: The output of the field.
 *   - $field-&gt;raw: The raw data for the field, if it exists. This is NOT output safe.
 *   - $field-&gt;class: The safe class id to use.
 *   - $field-&gt;handler: The Views field handler object controlling this field. Do not use
 *     var_export to dump this object, as it can't handle the recursion.
 *   - $field-&gt;inline: Whether or not the field should be inline.
 *   - $field-&gt;inline_html: either div or span based on the above flag.
 *   - $field-&gt;wrapper_prefix: A complete wrapper containing the inline_html to use.
 *   - $field-&gt;wrapper_suffix: The closing tag for the wrapper.
 *   - $field-&gt;separator: an optional separator that may appear before a field.
 *   - $field-&gt;label: The wrap label text to use.
 *   - $field-&gt;label_html: The full HTML of the label to use including
 *     configured element type.
 * - $row: The raw result object from the query, with all data it fetched.
 *
 * @ingroup views_templates
 */


I was hoping "raw" was just the value in the field, but I think it's the entity id. PLEASE tell me there is a straight-forward way to get just the value of the field from this template!

Thanks!
If you have devel installed then add dpm($field); to the template and see if the field array contains the value itself (if I remember right - it isn't). The second step (if the field array doesn't contain the value) will be to use dpm($view); ,and in the view array you have the value for sure (I think it is something like $view-&gt;$row['field_name'][0]['value'] )