How to get the result of comments_number() as a string instead of printing it out?

Question

comments_number() is quite useful: It takes the result of get_comments_number() and prepares the output with some localization magic. Unfortunately, it prints the result out when it is done, it doesn’t offer an option to just return the string.

How can I get the string without printing it? I want to use it as a variable value.

Answer 1

Easiest way:

ob_start();
comments_number();
$data = ob_get_clean();

$data will contain the text.

Answer 2

Since WordPress 4.0, you can use the function get_comments_number_text(). See ticket #10177.

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Old answer

Create a wrapper function: filter the result of comments_number(), store it in your wrapper, and return an empty string to the native function. return the real string in your wrapper function.

/**
 * Wrapper for native comments_number().
 *
 * This has two functions:
 * 1. It is can be called from a theme or plugin to get the comments number
 *    string *returned* for a variable.
 * 2. It sets itself as a temorary filter to catch the string. The filter will
 *    be removed immediately afterwards.
 *
 * @wp-hook comments_number
 * @param   string $zero Template for no comments OR the parsed string
 *                       when used as filter.
 * @param   string $one
 * @param   string $more
 * @return  string
 */
function t5_get_comments_number( $zero = FALSE, $one = FALSE, $more = FALSE )
{
    static $output = '';

    if ( 'comments_number' === current_filter() )
    {
        remove_filter( current_filter(), __FUNCTION__ );
        $output = $zero;
        return '';
    }
    else
    {
        add_filter( 'comments_number', __FUNCTION__ );
        comments_number();
        return $output;
    }
}

Usage:

$comm_num = t5_get_comments_number();
print "We found $comm_num.";

// Prints for example: We found 51 Comments.