title

$xml

function value_in($element_name, $xml, $content_only = true) {
    if ($xml == false) {
        return false;
    }
    $found = preg_match('#<'.$element_name.'(?:\s+[^>]+)?>(.*?)'.
            '</'.$element_name.'>#s', $xml, $matches);
    if ($found != false) {
        if ($content_only) {
            return $matches[1];  //ignore the enclosing tags
        } else {
            return $matches[0];  //return the full pattern match
        }
    }
    // No match found: return false.
    return false;
}

$title = value_in('title', $xml);