How to limit depth of reply comments in laravel?

@edmond_brakus 

To limit the depth of reply comments in Laravel, you can add a depth column to your comments table and set a maximum depth for replies. Here are the steps to limit the depth of reply comments in Laravel:

1. Add a migration to add a depth column to your comments table:

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php artisan make:migration add_depth_to_comments_table

In the generated migration file, add the following code to add a depth column to your comments table:

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Schema::table('comments', function (Blueprint $table) {
    $table->integer('depth')->default(0);
});

Run the migration to add the depth column to your comments table:

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php artisan migrate

1. Update your comment model to include the depth column: In your comment model (e.g., Comment.php), add the following code to define the depth column as fillable:

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protected $fillable = ['content', 'user_id', 'parent_id', 'depth'];

1. Add validation rules to limit the depth of reply comments: In your controller method where you store a new comment, add validation rules to limit the depth of reply comments. For example, you can set a maximum depth of 2 for reply comments:

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$validatedData = $request->validate([
    'content' => 'required',
    'user_id' => 'required',
    'parent_id' => [
        'required',
        function($attribute, $value, $fail) {
            $parentComment = Comment::find($value);
            if ($parentComment && $parentComment->depth >= 2) {
                return $fail("Reply depth exceeds maximum limit of 2.");
            }
        }
    ]
]);

1. Update your comment creation logic to increment the depth of replies: When creating a new comment, you need to increment the depth of the reply comment based on the parent comment's depth. For example, in your store method:

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$comment = new Comment();
$comment->content = $request->content;
$comment->user_id = $request->user_id;
$comment->parent_id = $request->parent_id;
if ($request->parent_id) {
    $parentComment = Comment::find($request->parent_id);
    $comment->depth = $parentComment->depth + 1;
} else {
    $comment->depth = 0;
}
$comment->save();

By following these steps, you can limit the depth of reply comments in Laravel by adding a depth column, setting validation rules, and updating your comment creation logic to handle the depth of reply comments.