how to extract value from variable in PHP function?

This is probably a silly question but how do you extract the value of a variable inside a PHP function? I found this code on stackoverflow on how to find the title of the we开发者_C百科bpage:

function page_title($url) 
      {
        $fp = file_get_contents($url);
        if (!$fp) 
            return null;

        $res = preg_match("/<title>(.*)<\/title>/", $fp, $title_matches);
        if (!$res) 
            return null; 

        $title = $title_matches[1];
        return $title;
      }

I have a variable called $extract outside the function above and want to insert the value of $title from the function into the outside variable, $extract. I'm assuming you have to call the function first and then do something else to achieve this but I don't know what that step is.

If I call the function and the variable $title returns the value "welcome to my website", I want to associate that value with the outside variable, $extract.

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$extract = page_title($url);

place that outside the function and you should be good to go

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You can simply assign the value returned by a function to your property:

$value = somefunc();
echo $value;

function somefunc()
{
    return "trendy value";
}

---

just write

$extract = page_title($url); 

Outside your function. i.e. make function call like the above line and returned value whther null or $title will be stored to extract