Get total number of comment of the posts written by an author

Question

I have put this code on author.php page

 <?php if ( have_posts() ) : while ( have_posts() ) : the_post(); 

 //gets the number of comment(s) on a post                  
 $comments_number = get_comments_number();

 //adds all the comment counts up
 $numbercomment += $comments_number;

 ?>
 <?php endwhile; ?>

 <span>A total of <?php echo $numbercomment; ?> comments have been made on this author posts.</span>

Currently i am using a loop to find number of a comments on a post and total it with all the other comment count on other posts. The consists of only the author's post so in that way i can find the number of comments people have made on that specific author's posts. Is there a simpler way of doing it.

EDIT:
I want to count the total number of comments people have made on all of that author's posts. Put the above code up in author.php file and you will get what i mean..

Answer 1

You could use get_comments(), this way you don't have to loop through posts.

<?php
    $args = array(
        'post_author' => '' // fill in post author ID
    );

    $author_comments = get_comments($args);

    echo count($author_comments);

?>

Answer 2

Here I've written a SQL based function for you-

function the_dramatist_count_user_comments( $args = array() ) {
    global $wpdb;
    $default_args = array(
        'author_id' => 1,
        'approved' => 1
    );
    $param = wp_parse_args( $args, $default_args );
    $sql = $wpdb->prepare( "SELECT COUNT(comments.comment_ID) 
            FROM {$wpdb->comments} AS comments 
            LEFT JOIN {$wpdb->posts} AS posts
            ON comments.comment_post_ID = posts.ID
            WHERE posts.post_author = %d
            AND comment_approved = %d
            AND comment_type IN ('comment', '')",
        $param
    );

    return $wpdb->get_var( $sql );
}

Use it like below-

$author_posts_comments_count = the_dramatist_count_user_comments(
    array(
        'author_id' => 1, // Author ID
        'approved' => 1, // Approved or not Approved
    )
);

Now on $author_posts_comments_count you'll get the full comments count for an authors all posts.

It's tested.

Hope that helps.