Assuming your comment authors are intended to be registered users, the easiest way is probably to use a pre_get_comments
action hook to modify the WP_Comment_Query
object‘s user_id
query var such that the query only returns comments from the current user:
function wpse262203_restrict_comment_views( $comments_query ) {
// Don't interfere with comment results in the dashboard
if( is_admin() )
return;
$current_user = wp_get_current_user(); // Get the current user
if( $current_user instanceof WP_User && is_user_logged_in() ) {
// The visitor is logged in as a WordPress user...
// If they're an administrator, don't filter the comments
if( in_array( 'administrator', $current_user->roles ) )
return;
// Otherwise, restrict queried comments to those authored by this user.
$comments_query->query_vars[ 'user_id' ] = $current_user->ID;
}
else {
// The visitor isn't logged in - make sure no comments are queried.
$comments_query->query_vars[ 'comment__in' ] = array(0);
}
}
add_action( 'pre_get_comments', 'wpse262203_restrict_comment_views' );
You can also use current_user_can()
instead of/in addition to checking for user roles to tailor who comments are filtered for.
While you can also support anonymous commenting by using wp_get_current_commenter()
in conjunction with the author_email
WP_Comment_Query
argument, this isn’t terribly reliable or secure. Anonymous commenter ID data is stored in cookies, meaning the user can clear it or the cookies could expire – in which case the user would be unable to view their comments until they post another. The credentials are also fairly easily spoofed – crafty visitors could potentially gain access to comments from other users.
EDIT – Why this wasn’t working, previously
After further investigation, my earlier attempts to use WP_Comment_Query::set()
to change query variables was failing because as it turns out, WP_Comment_Query
does not actually have a set()
method, unlike it’s WP_Query
counterpart (see ticket #39120). It does however have a __call()
“Magic Method”, which was intercepting the call to the non-existent set()
method and returning false, thus preventing the error which PHP would have normally thrown and confusing me to no end.