How to replace the default comments counter with Facebook comments counter in Easy Social Share Buttons for WordPress (requires version 4.1 or newer). Code can be added anywhere

essb-replace-comments-count.php

function essb_counter_request_external( $encUrl ) {

	$counter_curl_fix = essb_option_value('counter_curl_fix');

	$options = array(
			CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER	=> true, 	// return web page
			CURLOPT_HEADER 			=> false, 	// don't return headers
			//CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION	=> true, 	// follow redirects
			CURLOPT_ENCODING	 	=> "", 		// handle all encodings
			CURLOPT_USERAGENT	 	=> isset($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT']) ? $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'] : 'essb', 	// who am i
			CURLOPT_AUTOREFERER 	=> true, 	// set referer on redirect
			CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT 	=> 5, 		// timeout on connect
			CURLOPT_TIMEOUT 		=> 10, 		// timeout on response
			CURLOPT_MAXREDIRS 		=> 3, 		// stop after 3 redirects
			CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST 	=> 0,
			CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER 	=> false,
			CURLOPT_FAILONERROR => false,
			CURLOPT_NOSIGNAL => 1,
	);
	$ch = curl_init();

	if (ini_get('open_basedir') == '' && ini_get('safe_mode' == 'Off')) {
		$options[CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION] = true;
	}

	$options[CURLOPT_URL] = $encUrl;
	curl_setopt_array($ch, $options);
	// force ip v4 - uncomment this
	try {
		//print 'curl state = '.$counter_curl_fix;
		if ($counter_curl_fix != 'true') {
			curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_IPRESOLVE, CURL_IPRESOLVE_V4);
		}
	}
	catch (Exception $e) {

	}

		
	$content	= curl_exec( $ch );
	$err 		= curl_errno( $ch );
	$errmsg 	= curl_error( $ch );

	curl_close( $ch );

	if ($errmsg != '' || $err != '') {
		print_r($errmsg);
	}
	return $content;
}

function essb_get_facebook_comments_count($url) {

	$parse_url = 'https://graph.facebook.com/?id='.$url;

	$facebook_token = essb_option_value('facebook_counter_token');
	if ($facebook_token != '') {
		$parse_url = 'https://graph.facebook.com/?id='.$url.'&access_token=' . sanitize_text_field($facebook_token);
	}

	$content = essb_counter_request_external ( $parse_url );

	//print " facebook output = ".$content;
	$result = 0;
	$result_comments = 0;

	if ($content != '') {
		$content = json_decode ( $content, true );

		$data_parsers = $content;
		$result = isset ( $data_parsers ['share'] ['comment_count'] ) ? intval ( $data_parsers ['share'] ['comment_count'] ) : 0;
	}

	return $result;

}

if (!function_exists('essb_cache_counters_parse')) {
	function essb_cache_counters_parse($cached_counters = array()) {
		global $post;
		
		if (!isset($post)) return $cached_counters;
    $url = get_permalink($post->ID);
		
		$post_id = $post->ID;
		
		$cumulative_total = 0;
		foreach ($cached_counters as $network => $shares) {
			
			if ($network == 'total') continue;
			
			$shares = isset($cached_counters[$network]) ? $cached_counters[$network] : 0;
			
      if ($network == 'comment') {
          $shares = essb_get_facebook_comments_count($url);
      }
			$cached_counters[$network] = $shares;
			$cumulative_total += intval($shares);
		}
		
		$cached_counters['total'] = $cumulative_total;
	
		return $cached_counters;
	}
	
	add_filter('essb4_get_cached_counters', 'essb_cache_counters_parse');
}