mysql structure for comments and comment replies

Question

I\'ve been thinking about this one for quite some time now, I need a way to add replies to comments in the database but I\'m not sure how to proceed.

This is my curr

Answer 1

Looks like you are working with WordPress, adding a parent_comment_id would have been an ideal solution, but not in this case.

Firstly, I don't think modifying the WordPress basic tables is a good idea. Secondly, you'll end-up with a complex code that will break with wordpress updates.

Best is use a plugin like Intense Comments

Still if you want to create your own solution, I would say create another table for comment replies. a) Your new table would look like this

`CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `comment_replies` (
  `id` int(12) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `parent_comment_id` int(12) NULL,
  `comment` text,
  `user_id` int(12) DEFAULT NULL,
  `topic_id` int(12) NOT NULL,
  `ts` timestamp NOT NULL DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP,
  PRIMARY KEY (`id`),
  KEY `user_id` (`user_id`),
  KEY `topic_id` (`topic_id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB  DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8

b) You'd fetch them this way

$comment_ids = array_map( 'intval', array_keys( $comments ) );
sort( $comment_ids );
$comments_id_list = join( ',', $comment_ids );

$query = "SELECT c.id, c.comment, c.user_id, u.username, u.photo
FROM (comment_replies c)
JOIN users u ON c.user_id = u.id
WHERE c.parent_comment_id IN ( $comments_id_list )"

$replies = $wpdb->get_results($query);
$replies_by_parent = array();

foreach ( array_keys( $replies ) as $i ) {          
    $replies_by_parent [$replies[$i]->id] = array();
}
foreach ( array_keys( $replies ) as $i ) {          
    $replies_by_parent [$replies[$i]->id][] =& $replies[$i];
}

c) Now within your comments loop you can get the replies like this

foreach (  $replies_by_parent [$parent_id] as $reply ) {            
        echo $reply->comment;
    }