How to check if post has previous_comments_link() and next_comments_link()

Question

I'm using the following code for comments pagination (based on 2014 theme)

<?php if( get_comment_pages_count() > 1 && get_option( 'page_comments' ) ) : ?>
  <ul class="pager">
    <li class="previous">
      <?php previous_comments_link( __( '&larr; Older Comments', '' ) ); ?>
    </li>
    <li class="next">
      <?php next_comments_link( __( 'Newer Comments &rarr;', '' ) ); ?>
    </li>
  </ul>
<?php endif; ?>

I noticed that if I'm on the first page, the .previous list item is still in the DOM. It's empty but still there.

<li class="previous">
</li>

I tried to find a proper function in the Functions Reference, but found nothing.

What I'm trying to do is to check conditionally if previous_comments_link() and next_comments_link() should be displayed. If not, then do not display the list item.

I don't know if this is a good idea (semantic) to remove whole list item.

Answer 1

I should probably do

<?php if( previous_comments_link() ) : ?>
  <li class="previous">
    <?php previous_comments_link( __( '&larr; Older Comments', '' ) ); ?>
  </li>
<?php endif; ?>

<?php if( next_comments_link() ) : ?>
  <li class="next">
    <?php next_comments_link( __( '&larr; Newer Comments', '' ) ); ?>
  </li>
<?php endif; ?>

Answer 2

Although this post is 4 years old, I want to add that while using

if(previous_comments_link()) :

and

if(next_comments_link()) :

will work, using

if(get_previous_comments_link()) :

and

if(get_next_comments_link()) :

is more efficient and closer to standard practice in the WP community since the get_ functions here won't run through the additional code that echoes the code. This is true for most (but not all) functions that start with "get_".