the_title( string $before = '', string $after = '', bool $display = true ): void|string
- Since
- 0.71
- Source
wp-includes/post-template.php:43
Compatibility
- WordPress
- since 0.71
- PHP
- 7.4–8.6-dev
- 6.7.7
- 6.8.8
- 6.9.7
- 7.0.4
- 7.1.0
Present in every tracked release (6.7.7 to 7.1.0), and compiles on PHP 7.4 through 8.6-dev.
Parameters
$beforestringoptional- Markup to prepend to the title. Default empty.Default:
'' $afterstringoptional- Markup to append to the title. Default empty.Default:
'' $displaybooloptional- Whether to echo or return the title. Default true for echo.Default:
true
Return value
void|string- Void if
$displayargument is true or the title is empty, current post title if$displayis false.
Performance profile
How much work a call to the_title() does, and what it touches: the algorithmic scaling, the Zend instruction count per call across PHP versions, the hooks it hands control to, and the core code that calls it. Measured from the compiled opcodes, not a stopwatch, so every number is identical on any machine running the same PHP version, and every function in core is ranked by cost.
- Cost class
- Heavy
- Scaling
- Constant
- Instructions
- 10–15
- Plugin surface
- None
- Called by
- 3
Reaches the database via get_post().
No loop in the body: the same number of instructions runs whatever you pass in.
Executed per call on PHP 8.5, depending on the branch taken. The body compiles to 17.
Nothing here hands control to plugin code.
3 places in core call this, so the cost is paid more often than your own code shows.
What it touches
- querycontent query
get_post()one call below the_title() - hookthird-party callbacks
apply_filters()one call below the_title()
Further down the call graph this can also reach option, cache, serialize and transient. Those are the worst case, several calls deep and usually down an error path, not what a normal call pays.
What one call costs · 1 distinct outcome
One number would be a lie: the work depends on which branch runs. These are every distinct cost the_title() can have, taken from its control-flow graph on PHP 8.5.
| When | Instructions | Calls it makes |
|---|---|---|
| always | 10–15 | get_the_title() |
Across PHP versions
Compiles the same on PHP 7.4, 8.1, 8.2, 8.3, 8.4, 8.5 and 8.6-dev: 17 instructions, 10–15 executed per call, 2 branches. The work does not change between versions.
An instruction is not a fixed amount of time, so a matching count is not necessarily the same speed; what it rules out is a difference in the work itself.
Uses · 1
- get_the_title()Retrieves the post title.
Used by · 3
- Twenty_Eleven_Ephemera_Widget::widget()Outputs the HTML for this widget.
- Twenty_Fourteen_Ephemera_Widget::widget()Outputs the HTML for this widget.
- twenty_twenty_one_continue_reading_text()Creates continue reading text.
Source code
function the_title( $before = '', $after = '', $display = true ) { $title = get_the_title(); if ( strlen( $title ) === 0 ) { return; } $title = $before . $title . $after; if ( $display ) { echo $title; } else { return $title; }}Changelog
Introduced in 0.71. Unchanged from 6.7.7 through 7.1.0.
Signature, return type and hooks compared across 5 parsed releases.
About this page
- Parsed data
- Generated from the wordpress-develop 7.1.0 tag, from
src/wp-includes/post-template.php, and regenerated for each WordPress release so it tracks the code rather than a snapshot of it. - Corrections
- Something wrong on this page? Report it and it gets fixed in the next regeneration.