While developing a custom WordPress theme recently I found myself in a situation where I needed to find out the name of the WordPress page template being used for the current page.

After searching the WordPress Codex I had found the code which enables you to check the page template by using a string comparison like this:

if( is_page_template( 'template-name.php' ) ) {
  //some code
}

….function but the file name I was passing it kept returning false.

I eventually found this code, which does exactly what I needed and returns the full file name of the template being used for the current page.

 $template_name = get_post_meta( $wp_query->post->ID, '_wp_page_template', true ); 

Incidentally in case anyone else finds themselves in the same situation as me when I found out the full file name I was surprised – it was giving me a filename that no longer existed. So remember that if you rename a page template file you also need to go to each WordPress page that uses that template and reassign the template to it.