Comment Function

Question

How would I make this Function display only the latest 5 comments?

function showLatestComments() {
  global $wpdb;  
  $sql = "
   SELECT DISTINCT comment_post_ID, comment_author, comment_date_gmt, comment_approved, SUBSTRING(comment_content,1,100) AS com_excerpt 
   FROM $wpdb->comments 
   WHERE comment_approved = '1'
   ORDER BY comment_date_gmt DESC 
   LIMIT 5";  
 $comments = $wpdb->get_results($sql);  
 $output .= '<h2>Latest student perspectives <img src="/wp-content/themes/blue-and-grey/images/hmepage-tri.png" class="class3" /></h2>
 <ul id="comm">';  
 foreach ($comments as $comment) { 
   $output .= '<li><strong>'. $comment->comment_author . ' said</strong> : "' . strip_tags($comment->com_excerpt). '..."</li>';
   }
 $output .= '</ul>';  
 echo $output;  
}//end function

Answer 1

the function you posted is limited to 5 comments which means it should work, but anyway there is no need for a custom SQL query when you can use the native get_comments function

function showLatestComments() {
    $comments = get_comments(array(
        'status' => 'approve',
        'number' => '5'
        )
    );
    $output .= '<h2>Latest student perspectives <img src="/wp-content/themes/blue-and-grey/images/hmepage-tri.png" class="class3" /></h2>
    <ul id="comm">';  
    foreach ($comments as $comment) { 
        $output .= '<li><strong>'. $comment->comment_author . ' said</strong> : "' . substr(strip_tags($comment->content),0,99). '..."</li>';
    }
    $output .= '</ul>';  
    echo $output;  
}//end function