WordPress: Get Raw Document Title without Blog Name

Sometimes it is necessary to retrieve the current Document Title (used in the title tag) without the blog name or separators. As of WordPress 4.4 the wp_get_document_title() function become available which should be used to fetch the title – unfortunately it doesn’t accept any arguments and it is not possible to access the pure page title directly. Instead we can hook into the document_title_parts filter which allows us to access all title parts (title, page, tagline, site).

Workaround#

// workaround to retrieve the document title
function getDocumentTitle(){
    // temporary title
    $documentTitle = 'Unknown';

    // extractor function
    $extractor = function($parts) use (&$documentTitle){
        if (isset($parts['title'])){
            $documentTitle = $parts['title'];
        }
        return $parts;
    };

    // add filter to retrieve the page title
    add_filter('document_title_parts', $extractor);

    // trigger title generation
    wp_get_document_title();

    // remove filter
    remove_filter('document_title_parts', $extractor);

    // return result
    return $documentTitle;
}