Chapter 10. Adding a Commenting System to Your Blog

One of the most important features of modern web applications is the ability to allow users to interact via a commenting system. Nearly every blog in existence allows its readers to comment on entries. This adds to the experience of the users and the blog author by enabling everyone to continue the conversations the author initiates with his posts.

In this chapter, I'll show you now to add a commenting system to the blog. To get the system up and running, you need to do the following:

• Create a comments table in the database to store comment entries

• Build a Comments class to perform all comment-related actions

• Build a method for displaying a form to enter new comments

• Modify index.php to display the comment form

• Build a method to store comments in the comments table

• Modify update.inc.php to handle new comments

• Build a method to retrieve comments for an entry

• Modify index.php to display entry comments

• Build a method to delete unwanted comments

• Modify update.inc.php to handle comment deletion

We'll be using object-oriented programming in this chapter again, so if you need to, refer to Chapter 8 for a quick refresher on the basics.