Actually the function you're gonna find great joy in is content().

My sig file has a link to 1.9.* element index. Since you're hip to php stuff you're gonna *love* that info-source. Basically click the first letter of the function you're interested in then scroll down until you find it. Click it and be amazed. Sometimes you'll find what appears to be the same function listed twice, but that's mostly like when it's Item->function and/or Comment->function. Anyway I usually open the function-specific page in a new tab just in case the first one isn't what I want. Once you get to the function information it'll give you a link to the line in the file where the function actually lives so you can get right into the guts without breaking a sweat.

Yeah it's like the third or fourth linked "content" on the index page. http://doc.b2evolution.net/v-1-9/evocore/Item.html#methodcontent is where you wanna be, then http://doc.b2evolution.net/v-1-9/__filesource/fsource_evocore__blogsincMODELitems_item.class.php.html#a1078 noting in particular line 1199.

Awesome that is exactly what I was looking for...thanks. Thanks for that link as well, I'm sure that will come in handy