Codex

Function Reference/comment class

This page is marked as incomplete. You can help Codex by expanding it.

WordPress includes a new function for comment classes, which will help theme authors perform simpler styling. The function is, appropriately enough, called comment_class().

See also post_class() for more details. 

<li <?php comment_class(); ?> id="li-comment-<?php comment_ID() ?>">

The comment_class() outputs the class="whatever" piece for that div. This includes several different classes of value: comment, even (or odd), thread-even, depth-1, etc.. These make it easy to style different parts of the theme in different ways.

Specifically, it will apply the following classes, based on the following conditions:

  • comment_type: for normal comments, adds class "comment". For all other types, it adds the value of the comment_type as the class
  • user_id: if the comment was made by a registered user, then adds class "byuser" and "comment-author-" + the user_nicename sanitized (i.e. spaces removed). Also, if the comment is by the original author of the post, the class "bypostauthor" is added.
  • Odd/Even: if the comment number is even, adds class "even". Otherwise, adds class "alt" and "odd".
  • Comment Depth: The class "depth=" + the comment depth is always added
  • Top-level Comments: If comment depth is top level (1), then adds "thread-even" or "thread-alt" and "thread-odd" depending on whether the comment number is even or odd.
  • If the optional class parameter is passed to comment_class(), then that class gets added to all the others. This is useful for defining your own custom comment class.

For special cases where you want to add your own classes, comment_class supports that too: 

<?php comment_class('special'); ?>

This will add "special" to the class list.

Also note that comment_class() uses the following global variables. So these variables can be set prior to calling comment_class() to effect the output: global $comment_alt, $comment_depth, $comment_thread_alt;

For example, you can force $comment_alt=FALSE if you always want to start with the first comment being even. The comment_class() function will then alternate this variable for you.

Source File

comment_class() is located in wp-includes/comment-template.php.

See also

Retrieved from "http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/comment_class"

Codex Resources