How do I implement nested comments?

html, html-lists, php

Solution

I asssume your comment table has id, parent_id, comment, ... and my suggestion goes like this;

Select you comments like;

$sql = "SELECT *FROM comments ORDER BY id DESC";

$rows = mysql_query($sql);

And next step is array operations.You can see the following code below and try working demo here;

$rows = your_select_result;//I assumed that you have done these stuffs
$comments = $row;
/**
This is test data, please remove this array while you are
running own application.Since you will use the data one you get your db
**/
$comments = array(
    1 => array('id' => 1, 'parent_id' => 0, 'childs' => array()),
    2 => array('id' => 2, 'parent_id' => 0, 'childs' => array()),
    3 => array('id' => 3, 'parent_id' => 0, 'childs' => array()),
    5 => array('id' => 5, 'parent_id' => 0, 'childs' => array()),
    11 => array('id' => 11, 'parent_id' => 0, 'childs' => array()),
    17 => array('id' => 17, 'parent_id' => 0, 'childs' => array()),
    23 => array('id' => 23, 'parent_id' => 0, 'childs' => array()),
    28 => array('id' => 28, 'parent_id' => 0, 'childs' => array()),
    4 => array('id' => 4, 'parent_id' => 1, 'childs' => array()),
    6 => array('id' => 6, 'parent_id' => 1, 'childs' => array()),
    8 => array('id' => 8, 'parent_id' => 2, 'childs' => array()),
    9 => array('id' => 9, 'parent_id' => 2, 'childs' => array()),
    7 => array('id' => 7, 'parent_id' => 3, 'childs' => array()),
    12 => array('id' =>12, 'parent_id' => 7, 'childs' => array()),
    13 => array('id' => 13, 'parent_id' => 12, 'childs' => array()),
);

/** Comment prepare start */
foreach ($comments as $k => &$v) {
    if ($v['parent_id'] != 0) {
        $comments[$v['parent_id']]['childs'][] =& $v;
    }
}
unset($v);

foreach ($comments as $k => $v) {
    if ($v['parent_id'] != 0) {
        unset($comments[$k]);
    }
}

/** Comment prepare end */

//Your indent pattern
function indent($size) {
    $string = "";
    for ($i = 0; $i < $size; $i++) {
        $string .= "#";
    }
    echo $string; 
}


function printComments($comments, $indent = 0) {
    foreach ($comments as $comment) {
        echo indent($indent + 1).' I am comment '.$comment['id']."\n";
        if (!empty($comment['childs'])) {
            printComments($comment['childs'], $indent + 1);
        }
        }
}


printComments($comments);

For demo please see here

Problem

I would like to diplay comments on my site like this: ``` <li>Parent <ul> <li>child one</li> <li>child two <ul> <li>grandchild</li> <li>other grandchild</li> </ul> </li> </ul> <li>Another parent with no children</li> <li> ``` I have read the following article, however it doesn't use `<li>`. So is there a way to display comments like I've done before with an array like so? Thanks. ``` $comments = array( array('id'=>1, 'parent_id'=>NULL, 'text'=>'Parent'), array('id'=>2, 'parent_id'=>1, 'text'=>'Child'), array('id'=>3, 'parent_id'=>2, 'text'=>'Child Third level'), array('id'=>4, 'parent_id'=>NULL, 'text'=>'Second Parent'), array('id'=>5, 'parent_id'=>4, 'text'=>'Second Child') ); ```

Original source

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