Count Parent Comments and Replies Separately

Do you want to count parent comments and replies on your blog separately like Facebook comments? While there’s probably a plugin for this, we have created a quick code snippet that you can use to count parent comments and replies separately in WordPress.

Instructions:

All you have to do is add this code to your theme’s functions.php file or in a site-specific plugin:

function c_parent_comment_counter($id){
    global $wpdb;
    $query = "SELECT COUNT(comment_post_id) AS count FROM $wpdb->comments WHERE `comment_approved` = 1 AND `comment_post_ID` = $id AND `comment_parent` = 0";
    $parents = $wpdb->get_row($query);
    return $parents->count;
}

Add this code snippet in the single.php or theme file where you want to display the number of comments and comment replies.

<?php
$number_of_parents = c_parent_comment_counter($post->ID);
$number_of_children = $post->comment_count - $number_of_parents;

echo "parents: ".$number_of_parents;
echo "children: ".$number_of_children;
?>

Note: If this is your first time adding code snippets in WordPress, then please refer to our guide on how to properly add code snippets in WordPress, so you don’t accidentally break your site.

If you liked this code snippet, please consider checking out our other articles on the site like: 24 best WordPress education themes and how to secure your WordPress forms with password protection.