WordPress - Recent Comments without a Plugin or Widget

old-style-recent-comments.php

function bg_recent_comments($no_comments = 10, $comment_len = 35) {
   
   global $wpdb;
  
	$request  = "SELECT * FROM $wpdb->comments";
	$request .= " JOIN $wpdb->posts ON ID = comment_post_ID";
	$request .= " WHERE comment_approved = '1' AND post_status = 'publish' AND post_password =''";
	$request .= " ORDER BY comment_date DESC LIMIT $no_comments";
		
	$comments = $wpdb->get_results($request);
		
	if ($comments) {
		foreach ($comments as $comment) {
			ob_start();
			?>
				<li>
					<a href="<?php echo get_permalink( $comment->comment_post_ID ) . '#comment-' . $comment->comment_ID; ?>"><?php echo dp_get_author($comment); ?>:</a>
					<?php echo strip_tags(substr(apply_filters('get_comment_text', $comment->comment_content), 0, $comment_len)); ?>
				</li>
			<?php
			ob_end_flush();
		}
	} else {
		echo '<li>'.__('No comments', 'banago').'</li>';
	}
}

recent-comments-usage.php

<div class="widget recent-comments">
    <h3>Recent Comments</h3>
    <?php get_recent_comments(); ?>
</div>

recent-comments.css

.recent-comments { list-style: none; font-size: 12px; color: #485358; }
.recent-comments li { overflow: hidden; padding: 20px 0; border-top: 1px dotted #DADEE1; }
.recent-comments li:first-child { border: 0 none; }
.recent-comments img { float: left; margin-right: 8px; } 
.recent-comments a { display: block; font-family: 'Rokkitt',Arial,sans-serif; margin-top: 10px; padding-top: 10px; text-transform: uppercase; } 

recent-comments.php

/**
 * Show Recent Comments
 *
 * @author Baki Goxhaj
 * @link http://wplancer.com/how-to-display-recent-comments-without-using-a-plugin-or-widget/ 
 *
 * @param string/integer $no_comments
 * @param string/integer $comment_len
 * @param string/integer $avatar_size
 * 
 * @echo string $comm
 */
function bg_recent_comments($no_comments = 5, $comment_len = 80, $avatar_size = 48) {

	$comments_query = new WP_Comment_Query();
	$comments = $comments_query->query( array( 'number' => $no_comments ) );
	
	$comm = '';
	if ( $comments ) : foreach ( $comments as $comment ) :
		$comm .= '<li>' . get_avatar( $comment->comment_author_email, $avatar_size );
		$comm .= '<a class="author" href="' . get_permalink( $comment->post_ID ) . '#comment-' . $comment->comment_ID . '">';
		$comm .= get_comment_author( $comment->comment_ID ) . ':</a> ';
		$comm .= '<p>' . strip_tags( substr( apply_filters( 'get_comment_text', $comment->comment_content ), 0, $comment_len ) ) . '</p></li>';
	endforeach; else :
		$comm .= 'No comments.';
	endif;
	
	echo $comm;	
}

This is a great snippet of code! I think you may have a typo though, on line 13 of "recent-comments.php". Shouldn't the function name be "get_recent_comments" instead of "bg_recent_comments"?

This saved me some time and once I changed the function name it worked great!

Thanks you for your snippet. It's useful. 😃