[php] Set Page Title using PHP

I wish to set the title of my webpage to Ultan.me - Whatever the post title. I want it to display the post title. The posts are submitted to a MySQL database and the title row is called "title". Any help is appreciated with this small question.

Update:

Here is the page itself now but it doesn't display the title. Should I open the php document and connect to my database somewhere different to it's current locations?

The Code (The only necessary piece is the beginning):

<html>
<head>

<meta name="keywords" content="Mac user Ultan Casey TheCompuGeeks UltanKC">
<title>Ultan.me - <?echo $title;?></title>

<link rel="stylesheet" href="css/styles.css" type="text/css" />
<script type="text/javascript"
src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.2.6/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" 
src="js/jquery.labelify.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
$(document).ready(function(){
  $(":text").labelify();
});
</script>
<style>
a {text-decoration:none}

</style>
</head>
<body>
<div id="main">

<!-- Menu Start -->
<div id="menu">
<ul>
<li><a href="index.php">home</a></li>
<li><a href="index.php">about me</a></li>
<li><a href="index.php">archives</a></li>
<li><a href="index.php">contact</a></li>
<li><a href="index.php">gallery</a></li>

</ul>
</div>
<!-- Menu End --> 

<img src="images/banner.png" />
<div id="content">
<div id="posts">
<?php
mysql_connect ('localhost', 'root', 'root') ;
mysql_select_db ('ultankc');

if (!isset($_GET['id']) || !is_numeric($_GET['id'])) {
    die("Invalid ID specified.");
}

$id = (int)$_GET['id'];
$sql = "SELECT * FROM php_blog WHERE id='$id' LIMIT 1";

$result = mysql_query($sql) or print ("Can't select entry from table php_blog.<br />" . $sql . "<br />" . mysql_error());

while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {

    $date = date("l F d Y", $row['timestamp']);

    $title = stripslashes($row['title']);
    $entry = stripslashes($row['entry']);
    $get_categories = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM php_blog_categories WHERE `category_id` = $row[category]");
    $category = mysql_fetch_array($get_categories);


    ?>
<p><?php echo "<p id='post-title'><strong><a href=\"post.php?id=". $id . "\">" . $title . "</a></strong></p>"; ?><br /><br />
<div id="entry"><?php echo $entry; ?>
</div><br /><br />
<p id="date">Posted in <a href="category.php?category=<?php echo $row['category']; ?>"><?php echo $category['category_name']; ?></a> on <?php echo $date; ?></p>
</p>
<h2 id="share-title">Share This Post</h2>
<div id="social-share">
<li id="link-right"><a href="http://twitter.com/home?status=
I just read <?php echo $title; ?> at http://ultan.me/post.php?id=<?php echo $id; ?>"><center>Twitter</center></a></li>
<li id="link-left"><a href="http://digg.com/submit?url=http://ultan.me/post.php?id=<?php echo $id; ?>"><center>Digg</center></a></li>
<br>
<li id="link-right"><a href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http://ultan.me/post.php?id=<?php echo $id; ?>&t=<?php echo $title; ?>"><center>Facebook</center></a></li>
<li id="link-left"><a href="http://www.google.com/buzz/post?url=http://ultan.me/post.php?id=<?php echo $id; ?>
"><center>Google Buzz</center></a></li>
<div class="clr"></div>
</div>
<h2 id="comments-title">Comments</h2>
 <div id="comment-list">
    <?php

}
$commenttimestamp = strtotime("now");

$sql = "SELECT * FROM php_blog_comments WHERE entry='$id' ORDER BY timestamp";
$result = mysql_query ($sql) or print ("Can't select comments from table php_blog_comments.<br />" . $sql . "<br />" . mysql_error());
while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
    $timestamp = date("l F d Y", $row['timestamp']);
      printf("<div class='comment-ind'><p id='comments'><a id='username' href=\"%s\">%s</a> %s</p>", stripslashes($row['url']), stripslashes($row['name']), $timestamp);
    print("<p class='comments'>" . stripslashes($row['comment']) . "</p><div class='clr'><br></div></div>");

  }
?>
<div class="clr"></div>
<form id="commentform" method="post" action="process.php">

<p><input type="hidden" name="entry" id="entry" value="<?php echo $id; ?>" />

<input type="hidden" name="timestamp" id="timestamp" value="<?php echo $commenttimestamp; ?>">

<input type="text" name="name" id="name" title="Name (required)" /><br />

<input type="text" name="email" id="email" title="Mail (will not be published) (required)" /><br />

<input type="text" name="url" id="url" title="Website" value="http://" /><br />

<br />
<textarea  title="Your Comment Goes Here" name="comment" id="comment"></textarea></p>

<p><input type="submit" name="submit_comment" id="submit_comment" value="Add Comment" /></p>

</form>
</div>
<div id="pages">

<?php
$total_results = mysql_fetch_array(mysql_query("SELECT COUNT(*) AS num FROM php_blog"));
$total_pages = ceil($total_results['num'] / $blog_postnumber);
if ($page > 1) {
    $prev = ($page - 1);
    echo "<a href=\"?page=$prev\">&lt;&lt;  Newer</a> ";
}
for($i = 1; $i <= $total_pages; $i++) {
    if ($page == $i) {
        echo "$i ";
    }
    else {
        echo "<a href=\"?page=$i\">$i</a> ";
    }
}
if ($page < $total_pages) {
   $next = ($page + 1);
   echo "<a href=\"?page=$next\">Older &gt;&gt;</a>";
}

?>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<!-- Sidebar Start -->
<div class="sidebar">

<!-- Item 1 -->
<div id="side-item"> 
<h2>
<a href="http://www.dailybooth.com/UltanCasey">
<img src="images/db-icon.jpg">Dailybooth
</a></h2>
<div id="side-item-content">
<center>
<img src="http://dailybooth.com/UltanCasey/latest/medium.jpg" />
</center>
</div>

</div>

<!-- Item 2 -->

<div id="side-item">
<h2><img src="images/connect.jpg" />Connect</h2>
</div>
<div id="side-item-content">
<div class="tweet-title"><p><a href="http://www.twitter.com/UltanKc">Latest Tweet:</a></p></div>
<div id="tweet">
<?php

function getTwitterStatus($userid){
$url = "http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/$userid.xml?count=1";

function auto_link_twitter ($text)
{
    // properly formatted URLs
    $urls = "/(((http[s]?:\/\/)|(www\.))?(([a-z][-a-z0-9]+\.)?[a-z][-a-z0-9]+\.[a-z]+(\.[a-z]{2,2})?)\/?[a-z0-9._\/~#&=;%+?-]+[a-z0-9\/#=?]{1,1})/is";
    $text = preg_replace($urls, " <a href='$1'>$1</a>", $text);

    // URLs without protocols
    $text = preg_replace("/href=\"www/", "href=\"http://www", $text);

    // Twitter usernames
    $twitter = "/@([A-Za-z0-9_]+)/is";
    $text = preg_replace ($twitter, " <a href='http://twitter.com/$1'>@$1</a>", $text);

    // Twitter hashtags
    $hashtag = "/#([A-Aa-z0-9_-]+)/is";
    $text = preg_replace ($hashtag, " <a href='http://hashtags.org/$1'>#$1</a>", $text);
    return $text;
}

$xml = simplexml_load_file($url) or die("could not connect");

       foreach($xml->status as $status){
       $text = $status->text;
       }
       echo auto_link_twitter ($text);
 }


getTwitterStatus("UltanKC");

?>
</div>
<br>
<ul>
<li id="social"><a href="#">YouTube</a></li>
<li id="social"><a href="#">Twitter</a></li>
<li id="social"><a href="#">LastFM</a></li>
<li id="social"><a href="#">Email</a></li>
</ul>

</div>
<!-- Item 2 End-->
<div id="side-item">
<h2><img src="images/archive.jpg" />Archives</h2>
</div>
<div id="archive-side">
<?php
mysql_connect ('localhost', 'root', 'root') ;
mysql_select_db ('ultankc');

$result = mysql_query("SELECT FROM_UNIXTIME(timestamp, '%Y') AS get_year, COUNT(*) AS entries FROM php_blog GROUP BY get_year");

while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
    $get_year = $row['get_year'];
    $entries = $row['entries'];

    echo "<li id='tag'><a href=\"archives.php?year=" . $get_year . "\">Entries from " . $get_year . "  (" . $entries . ")<br /></a></li>";
}

$result1 = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM php_blog_categories ORDER BY category_name ASC");

while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result1)) {

    $result2 = mysql_query("SELECT COUNT(`id`) AS entries FROM php_blog WHERE category = $row[category_id]");
    $num_entries = mysql_fetch_array($result2);

    echo '<li id="tag"><a href="category.php?category=' . $row['category_id'] . '">' . $row['category_name'] . ' (' . $num_entries['entries'] . ')</a></li>';

}
?>
</div>

</div>

<div class="clr" />
</div>
<!-- Sidebar End  -->
<div id="footer">
<p> &copy; Ultan Casey 2010</p>
<p style="margin-top: -18px; float:right"><a href="index.php">Home</a> | <a href="about.php">About Me</a> | <a href="mailto:[email protected]">Email Me</a></p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>
?>

This question is related to php title

The answer is


Here's the method I use (for similar things, not just title):

<?
ob_start (); // Buffer output
?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en">

<head>
<title><!--TITLE--></title>
</head>

<body>
<?
$pageTitle = 'Title of Page'; // Call this in your pages' files to define the page title
?>
</body>
</html>
<?
$pageContents = ob_get_contents (); // Get all the page's HTML into a string
ob_end_clean (); // Wipe the buffer

// Replace <!--TITLE--> with $pageTitle variable contents, and print the HTML
echo str_replace ('<!--TITLE-->', $pageTitle, $pageContents);
?>

PHP usually works be executing any bits of code and printing all output directly to the browser. If you say "echo 'Some text here.';", that string will get sent the browser and is emptied from memory.

What output buffering does is say "Print all output to a buffer. Hold onto it. Don't send ANYTHING to the browser until I tell you to."

So what this does is it buffers all your pages' HTML into the buffer, then at the very end, after the tag, it uses ob_get_contents () to get the contents of the buffer (which is usually all your page's HTML source code which would have been sent the browser already) and puts that into a string.

ob_end_clean () empties the buffer and frees some memory. We don't need the source code anymore because we just stored it in $pageContents.

Then, lastly, I do a simple find & replace on your page's source code ($pageContents) for any instances of '' and replace them to whatever the $pageTitle variable was set to. Of course, it will then replace <title><!--TITLE--></title> with Your Page's Title. After that, I echo the $pageContents, just like the browser would have.

It effectively holds onto output so you can manipulate it before sending it to the browser.

Hopefully my comments are clear enough. Look up ob_start () in the php manual ( http://php.net/ob_start ) if you want to know exactly how that works (and you should) :)


I know this is an old post but having read this I think this solution is much simpler (though technically it solves the problem with Javascript not PHP).

    <html>
    <head>
    <title>Ultan.me - Unset</title>
    <script type="text/javascript">
        function setTitle( text ) {
            document.title = text;
        }
    </script>
    <!-- other head info -->
    </head>

    <?php 
    // Make the call to the DB to get the title text. See OP post for example
    $title_text = "Ultan.me - DB Title";

    // Use body onload to set the title of the page
    print "<body onload=\"setTitle( '$title_text' )\"   >";

    // Rest of your code here
    print "<p>Either use php to print stuff</p>";
    ?>
    <p>or just drop in and out of php</p>
    <?php

    // close the html page
    print "</body></html>";
    ?>

The problem is that $title is being referenced on line 5 before it's being assigned on line 58. Rearranging your code isn't easy, because the data is both retrieved and output at the same time. Just to test, how does something like this work?

Because you're only retrieving one row, you don't need to use a while loop, but I left it with hopes that it'll make it easier for you to relate to your current code. All I've done is removed the actual output from your data retrieval, and added variables for category and category name which are then referred to as usual later on. Also, I haven't tested this. :)


You need to set the value of $title before echoing it.

Also, you should really sanitize any data before using it in queries as this is a security risk


It'll be tricky to rearrange your code to make this work, but I'll try :)

So, put this at the top of your code:

<?php require_once('mysql.php'); ?>

The top of the file should look like:

<?php require_once('mysql.php'); ?>
<html>
    <head>

    <meta name="keywords" content="Mac user Ultan Casey TheCompuGeeks UltanKC">
    <title>Ultan.me - <?php echo htmlspecialchars($title); ?> </title>

Then, create a file called mysql.php in the same directory that the file which contains the code you quoted is in.

Put this is mysql.php:

<?php
mysql_connect ('localhost', 'root', 'root');
mysql_select_db ('ultankc');

if (!isset($_GET['id']) || !is_numeric($_GET['id'])) {
    die("Invalid ID specified.");
}

$id = (int)$_GET['id'];
$sql = "SELECT * FROM php_blog WHERE id='$id' LIMIT 1";

$result = mysql_query($sql) or print ("Can't select entry from table php_blog.<br />" .       $sql . "<br />" . mysql_error());

$res = mysql_fetch_assoc($result); 

$date = date("l F d Y", $res['timestamp']);
$title = $res['title'];
$entry = $res['entry'];
$get_categories = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM php_blog_categories WHERE `category_id` = $res['category']");
$category = mysql_fetch_array($get_categories);

?>

Well, hope that helped :)


if you want to current script filename as your title tag

include the function in your project

function setTitle($requestUri)
         {
            $explodeRequestUri = explode("/", $requestUri);
            $currentFileName = end($explodeRequestUri);
            $withoutExt = preg_replace('/\\.[^.\\s]{3,4}$/', '', $currentFileName);
            $explodeCurrentFileName = explode("-", $withoutExt);
            foreach ($explodeCurrentFileName as $curFileValue) 
            {
               $fileArrayName[] = ucfirst($curFileValue);
            }
            echo implode(" ", $fileArrayName);

         }

and in your html include the function script and replace your title tag with this

<title>Your Project Name -
            <?php setTitle($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']); ?>
        </title>

it works on php7 and above but i dont have any idea about php 5.* Hope it helps


Move the data retrieval at the top of the script, and after that use:

<title>Ultan.me - <?php echo htmlspecialchars($title, ENT_QUOTES, 'UTF-8'); ?></title>

Simply add $title variable before require function

<?php
    $title = "Your title goes here";
    require("header.php");
  ?>

header.php

<title><?php echo $title; ?></title>

<?php echo APP_TITLE?> - <?php echo $page_title;?> 

this should work fine for you


What about using something like:

<?php 
    $page_title = "Your page tile";
    include("navigation.php");             // if required
    echo("<title>$page_title</title>");
?>

You parse the field from the database as usual.

Then let's say you put it in a variable called $title, you just

<html>
<head>
<title>Ultan.me - <?php echo htmlspecialchars($title);?></title>
</head>

EDIT:

I see your problem. You have to set $title BEFORE using it. That is, you should query the database before <title>...


header.php has the title tag set to <title>%TITLE%</title>; the "%" are important since hardly anyone types %TITLE% so u can use that for str_replace() later. then, you use output buffer like so

<?php
ob_start();
include("header.php");
$buffer=ob_get_contents();
ob_end_clean();
$buffer=str_replace("%TITLE%","NEW TITLE",$buffer);
echo $buffer;
?>

For more reference, click PHP - how to change title of the page AFTER including header.php?


create a new page php and add this code:

_x000D_
_x000D_
<?php_x000D_
function ch_title($title){_x000D_
    $output = ob_get_contents();_x000D_
    if ( ob_get_length() > 0) { ob_end_clean(); }_x000D_
    $patterns = array("/<title>(.*?)<\/title>/");_x000D_
    $replacements = array("<title>$title</title>");_x000D_
    $output = preg_replace($patterns, $replacements,$output);_x000D_
    echo $output;_x000D_
}_x000D_
?>
_x000D_
_x000D_
_x000D_

in <head> add code: <?php require 'page.php' ?> and on each page you call the function ch_title('my title');