is therer any wordpress function to retrieve a specific html element from post content

I am developing a wordpress blog theme and I want to use the heading1 element(tag) from post content to be used as the title for my posts instead of the default title. Actually, I want the title for my posts to be a little longer than the default title(which I require to set shorter for meeting SEO recommendations).

Probably I would need something like <?php get_the_tag(); ?>

instead of <?php the_title(); ?>

I am developing a wordpress blog theme and I want to use the heading1 element(tag) from post content to be used as the title for my posts instead of the default title. Actually, I want the title for my posts to be a little longer than the default title(which I require to set shorter for meeting SEO recommendations).

Probably I would need something like <?php get_the_tag(); ?>

instead of <?php the_title(); ?>

• custom-post-types
• posts
• customization

Share Improve this question asked Feb 15, 2019 at 19:55 Shahid IslamShahid Islam 311 bronze badge 2

• 1 Where do you want to use the shorter title, and where do you want to use the longer title? You could use WP's native title in some places and a shorter one elsewhere. Many sites use SEO plugins such as Yoast to make the <title> tag different than the WP title. – WebElaine Commented Feb 15, 2019 at 20:25
• 1 A custom field would be a much more sensible option than trying to extract the value from HTML, if you ask me. But I don't really understand what you're trying to do. When you say "title", what are you referring to? The <title> element? The name of the post in the back-end? The meta title? If you're not using the_title() then what are you using the title for that requires it to be shorter? – Jacob Peattie Commented Feb 16, 2019 at 2:49

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1 Answer 1

Sorted by: Reset to default 0

You can try extracting the content of the first H1 tag from your post.

function get_first_h1(){

    //Get filtered content of post
    ob_start();
    the_content();
    $content = ob_get_clean();

    //Define matching pattern: content of h1 tags
    $h1_pattern = "~<h1>(.*)</h1>~";

    //Variable to hold results
    $header_matches = array();

    //Search content for pattern
    preg_match( $h1_pattern, $content, $header_matches );

    //First match will be 2nd item in array (first is entire content, if any matches)
    if ( count( $header_matches ) > 1 ){
        return $header_matches[1];
    }

    //Fallback: return post title
    return get_the_title();

}

Notes:

• That function should be saved in functions.php, a custom plugin, or a file included in one of those
• Result of that function may be echoed out or used as part of another function , i.e. echo get_first_h1();
• That function, as written, must be used within a WordPress Loop

Personally, I like @Jacob Peattie's suggestion above better. Create a custom field to store the extra title field you want. I am providing this solution in case you must do it this way, i.e. you have 1,000's of posts and don't want to go set the title fields.