Multi-tiered Comment Replies: Display and Storage

Question

So I\'m trying to create a comment system in which you can reply to comments that are already replies (allowing you to create theoretically infinite threads of replies). I want

Answer 1

You should consider nesting your comments in a tree - I'm not that well familiar with data trees, but I can accomplish something relatively easy - I'm open to any suggestions (and explanations) for optimizing the code - but an idea would be something like this:

id = $id;
            $this->parent = $parent;
            $this->content = $content;
        }

        public function addChild( Comment $obj )
        {
            $this->childs[] = $obj;
        }

    }


    /** Function to locate an object from it's id to help nest the comments in a hieraci */ 
    function locateObject( $id, $comments )
    {
        foreach($comments as $commentObject)
        {
            if($commentObject->id == $id)
                return $commentObject;

            if( count($commentObject->childs) > 0 )
                return locateObject($id, $commentObject->childs);

        }
    }

    /** Function to recursively show comments and their nested child comments */
    function showComments( $commentsArray )
    {
        foreach($commentsArray as $commentObj)
        {
            echo $commentObj->id;
            echo $commentObj->content;

            if( count($commentObj->childs) > 0 )
                showComments($commentObj->childs);
        }
    }

    /** SQL to select the comments and order dem by their parents and date */
    $sql = "SELECT * FROM comment ORDER BY parent, date ASC";
    $result = $mysqli->query($sql);

    $comments = array();

    /** A pretty self-explainatory loop (I hope) */
    while( $row = $result->fetch_assoc() )
    {

        $commentObj = new Comment($row["id"], $row["parent"], $row["content"]);

        if($row["parent"] == 0)
        {
            $comments[] = $commentObj;
            continue;
        }

        $tObj = locateObject($row["parent"], $comments);
        if( $tObj )
            $tObj->addChild( $commentObj );         
        else
            $comments[] = $commentObj;

    }



    /** And then showing the comments*/
    showComments($comments);


?>

I hope you get the general idea, and I'm certain that some of the other users here can provide with some experienced thoughts about my suggestion and helt optimize it.