title: php substr returning incorrect characters on a string variable from a preg_match function
body: <p>This is sort of a rookie question, but...</p>
  
  <p>I'm calling a function in another php file that uses preg_match to get a string. I then want to use substr to get a specific part of that string, however it doesn't output any of the characters in the string. When I replace the variable from the <code>preg_match</code> function, I get the right output.</p>
  
  <p>Here is the basic code:</p>
  
  <pre><code>$title = $stream["song1"]; // From a preg_match in an external php file
  echo $title; // Correctly prints the song name, in this case "mySong"
  echo substr($title, 0, 1);  // Outputs a "&lt;" symbol (why??)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>If I run the same three lines above, but hard code the song title:</p>
  
  <pre><code>$title = "mySong";
  echo $title; // Correctly prints the song name, in this case "mySong"
  echo substr($title, 0, 1);  // Outputs a "m" symbol (correct)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Also, when I check the type of variable <code>$title</code> is, it returns "string".  I'm sure I'm doing something really stupid... can anyone help?</p>