Verify if WordPress title starts with character

Question

I am trying to verify if the WordPress post title starts with certain 3 first characters to achieve a condition. Here is what i tried by it brings back the title itself.

$verify = the_title();
if(substr($verify,0,3) == '000'){
$maptitle = 'test 1';
} else {
$maptitle = 'none';}

Answer 1

You should use get_the_title(). the_title() will print the title to the screen. In your case, you need to return the title so that you can parse it.

$verify = get_the_title();

https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/functions/get_the_title/

If you want to use the_title(), you can, but you will need to specify that you want the value returned.

$verify = the_title('', '', false);

https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/functions/get_the_title/