Is there a way to conditionally check whether a WordPress post title is empty?

Question

Inside a WordPress loop, I'd like to conditionally check to see if the post has a title, in order to provide necessary wrapping HTML. If the post does not have a title, I don't want any of the wrapping HTML to appear.

Answer 1

While you're in The Loop you can check against the WP_Post Object like so:

<?php while( have_posts() ) : the_post(); ?>

    <?php if( ! empty( $post->post_title ) ) : ?>

        <h1><?php the_title(); ?></h1>

    <?php endif; ?>

<?php endwhile; ?>

Answer 2

While checking $post->post_title, as in Howdy_McGee's answer, is probably safe in most cases, there may be some instances where a title is being modified by the_title filter. In that case, you have to get the title via the API to determine if it's really empty.

$title = trim( get_the_title() );

if( ! empty( $title ) ){
    echo 'there is a title';
} else {
    echo 'empty title';
}

Answer 3

You can add the before and after html tags to the_title() function. If the post_title is empty, nothing will be outputted.

the_title('<h1>', '</h1>');

Answer 4

To expand @Milo's answer.

echo $title = ( ! empty( trim( get_the_title())) ? "there is a title" : "empty title";

or

echo $title = ( ! empty( trim( get_the_title())) ?: "empty title";