Get WordPress Post ID from Post title

I have an issue with a custom WordPress theme I'm developing. It's a bit convoluted, but essentially, what I need to do is get a Post Id by it's Post Title. In pseudo-code it would ideally be something like:

title = "foo";
post_id = get_post_id_where_title_is(title);

The title mentioned is a static reference not being pulled in from WordPress, it's already present on the page.

Thanks in advance.

Solution 1:

Just a quick note for anyone who stumbles across this:
get_page_by_title() can now handle any post type.
The $post_type parameter has been added in WP 3.0.

Solution 2:

Found a solution if anyone else struggles with this. Only posted the question out of desperation after 4 hours testing/Googling!

function get_post_by_title($page_title, $output = OBJECT) {
    global $wpdb;
        $post = $wpdb->get_var( $wpdb->prepare( "SELECT ID FROM $wpdb->posts WHERE post_title = %s AND post_type='post'", $page_title ));
        if ( $post )
            return get_post($post, $output);

    return null;
}

Found at: http://sudarmuthu.com/blog/2009/09/18/retrieving-posts-and-pages-based-on-title-in-wordpress.html

Solution 3:

Like Michal Mau mentioned:

Use

$my_post = get_page_by_title( 'My Title', OBJECT, 'post' );
echo $my_post->post_content;

It's ( $page_title, $output, $post_type ) to easily receive a post instead of a page.