Prevent comments_template() to load comments.php

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Not sure the following solution is better than the solution in OP, let’s just say is an alternative, probably more hackish, solution.

I think you can use a PHP exception to stop WordPress execution when 'comments_template' filter is applied.

You can use a custom exception class as a DTO to carry the template.

This is a draft for the excepion:

class CommentsTemplateException extends \Exception {

   protected $template;

   public static function forTemplate($template) {
     $instance = new static();
     $instance->template = $template;

     return $instance;
   }

   public function template() {
      return $this->template;
   }
}

With this exception class available, your function becomes:

function engineCommentsTemplate($myEngine) {

    $filter = function($template) {
       throw CommentsTemplateException::forTemplate($template);
    };  

    try {
       add_filter('comments_template', $filter, PHP_INT_MAX); 
       // this will throw the excption that makes `catch` block run
       comments_template();
    } catch(CommentsTemplateException $e) {
       return $myEngine->render($e->template());
    } finally {
       remove_filter('comments_template', $filter, PHP_INT_MAX);
    }
}

The finally block requires PHP 5.5+.

Works the same way, and doesn’t require an empty template.

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