Node id in views template Sorry if this question has been answered already but I couldn't find an exact answer. Maybe I'm missing something.

Context of my issue:

I have a view that lists fields of certain content type. One of the fields is the nid. I need to do some validation in the view template before printing anything. So I need to call a function and check something using the nid as parameter. In my views-view-fields.tpl.php I do something like:

&lt;?php foreach ($fields as $id =&gt; $field): ?&gt;
    &lt;?php if ($id == "nid"): ?&gt;  
        &lt;?php my_function_here($field-&gt;content); ?&gt;
    &lt;?php endif; ?&gt;
&lt;?php endforeach; ?&gt;


As you might expect, $field->content is a string and if I do something like this in my function, it just won't work.

function my_function_here($nid) {
    var_dump(node_load($nid));
}


I tried casting the value to integer, but still no luck (casting returns 0):

function my_function_here($nid) {
    $nid = (int)$nid;
    var_dump(node_load($nid));
}


and 

function my_function_here($nid) {
    $nid = intval($nid);
    var_dump(node_load($nid));
}


So my question is: how do I get the nid in that view template?

Big thanks in advance!
From a similar issue - you can find details here (or just search for views preprocessor):

A preprocessor will give you access to the data, instead of rendered html which you find in the tpl file.


  There aren't dynamically generated preprocess functions; instead, all
  of the theme functions use the base preprocessor automatically. So
  views-view--my-first-view.tpl.php still uses
  template_preprocess_views_view(&amp;$vars) as its preprocessor function.
  
  You can add preprocess functions for specific views with the exact
  same naming conventions. Note that that it's named *preprocess not
  preprocessor_.
  
  Note that currently Drupal's design requires that you have the
  .tpl.php file in order to have the preprocess function (though you
  could drop in a generic preprocess function and do switches based upon
  information contained within the $vars['view'] variable. There's an
  issue for this which is fairly easily found by going to the Drupal
  queue and searching in the 'theme system' queue.