What does the “$depth” parameter in the Walker_Comment stand for?

by

I’m trying to write a custom comment class for my comments and I’ve been trying to de-construct the code for quite a while, here it is:

class Custom_Comment_Walker extends Walker_Comment {
    var $tree_type="comment";
    var $db_fields = array( 'parent' => 'comment_parent', 'id' => 'comment_ID' );

    // constructor – wrapper for the comments list
    function __construct() { ?>
        <?php echo "Walker loaded."; ?>
        <section class="comments-list">

    <?php }

    // start_lvl – wrapper for child comments list
    function start_lvl( &$output, $depth = 0, $args = array() ) {
        $GLOBALS['comment_depth'] = $depth + 1; ?>

        <section class="child-comments comments-list">

    <?php }

    // end_lvl – closing wrapper for child comments list
    function end_lvl( &$output, $depth = 0, $args = array() ) {
        $GLOBALS['comment_depth'] = $depth + 1; ?>

        </section>

    <?php }

    // start_el – HTML for comment template
    function start_el( &$output, $comment, $depth = 0, $args = array(), $id = 0 ) {
        $depth++;
        $GLOBALS['comment_depth'] = $depth;
        $GLOBALS['comment'] = $comment;
        $parent_class = ( empty( $args['has_children'] ) ? '' : 'parent' ); 

        if ( 'article' == $args['style'] ) {
            $tag = 'article';
            $add_below = 'comment';
        } else {
            $tag = 'article';
            $add_below = 'comment';
        } ?>

        <article <?php comment_class(empty( $args['has_children'] ) ? '' :'parent') ?> id="comment-<?php comment_ID() ?>" itemprop="comment" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Comment">
            <figure class="gravatar"><?php echo get_avatar( $comment, 65, '[default gravatar URL]', 'Author’s gravatar' ); ?></figure>
            <div class="comment-meta post-meta" role="complementary">
                <h2 class="comment-author">
                    <a class="comment-author-link" href="https://wordpress.stackexchange.com/questions/289847/<?php comment_author_url(); ?>" itemprop="author"><?php comment_author(); ?></a>
                </h2>
                <time class="comment-meta-item" datetime="<?php comment_date('Y-m-d') ?>T<?php comment_time('H:iP') ?>" itemprop="datePublished"><?php comment_date('jS F Y') ?>, <a href="#comment-<?php comment_ID() ?>" itemprop="url"><?php comment_time() ?></a></time>
                <?php edit_comment_link('<p class="comment-meta-item">Edit this comment</p>','',''); ?>
                <?php if ($comment->comment_approved == '0') : ?>
                <p class="comment-meta-item">Your comment is awaiting moderation.</p>
                <?php endif; ?>
            </div>
            <div class="comment-content post-content" itemprop="text">
                <?php comment_text() ?>
                <?php comment_reply_link(array_merge( $args, array('add_below' => $add_below, 'depth' => $depth, 'max_depth' => $args['max_depth']))) ?>
            </div>

    <?php }

    // end_el – closing HTML for comment template
    function end_el(&$output, $comment, $depth = 0, $args = array() ) { ?>

        </article>

    <?php }

    // destructor – closing wrapper for the comments list
    function __destruct() { ?>

        </section>

    <?php }
}

As per the documentation from WordPress Developers:

The variable determines how much depth each level goes for, so, if I decide to add a depth of 1 to my initial comment, only 1 level of replies will be allowed.

Unfortunately, this also doesn’t seem to be the case.

1 Answer
1

The $depth parameter in the walker class is used for outputting and padding the output. You can use it to format your HTML structure. For example:

<div class="comment-meta post-meta cmnt-padding-<?php echo $depth ;?>" role="complementary">

which will output an extra class for your comment wrapper, that you can use to style your comments.

Leave a Comment