How to get all the comments from Disqus?

Question

I want to fetch all the comments on CNN whose comment system is Disqus. As an example, http://edition.cnn.com/2013/02/25/tech/innovation/google-glass-privacy-andrew-keen/index.html?hpt=hp_c1

The commenting system requires us to click on "load more" so that we can see more comments. I have tried using php to parse the html but it was not able to load all the comments since the javascript is used. So i am wondering if anyone has a more convenient way to retrieve all the comments from a specific cnn url.

Has anyone made it successfully? Thanks in advance

score 8 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 26 '13 at 07:16

The Disqus API contains a pagination method using cursors that are returned in the JSON response. See here for information about cursors: http://disqus.com/api/docs/cursors/

Since you mentioned PHP, something like this should get you started:

<?php
$apikey = '<your key here>'; // get keys at http://disqus.com/api/ — can be public or secret for this endpoint
$shortname = '<the disqus forum shortname>'; // defined in the var disqus_shortname = '...';
$thread = 'link:<URL of thread>'; // IMPORTANT the URL that you're viewing isn't necessarily the one stored with the thread of comments
//$thread = 'ident:<identifier of thread>'; Use this if 'link:' has no results. Defined in 'var disqus_identifier = '...';
$limit = '100'; // max is 100 for this endpoint. 25 is default

$endpoint = 'https://disqus.com/api/3.0/threads/listPosts.json?api_key='.$apikey.'&forum='.$shortname.'&limit='.$limit.'&cursor='.$cursor;

$j=0;
listcomments($endpoint,$cursor,$j);

function listcomments($endpoint,$cursor,$j) {

    // Standard CURL
    $session = curl_init($endpoint.$cursor);
    curl_setopt($session, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1); // instead of just returning true on success, return the result on success
    $data = curl_exec($session);
    curl_close($session);

    // Decode JSON data
    $results = json_decode($data);
    if ($results === NULL) die('Error parsing json');

    // Comment response
    $comments = $results->response;

    // Cursor for pagination
    $cursor = $results->cursor;

    $i=0;
    foreach ($comments as $comment) {
        $name = $comment->author->name;
        $comment = $comment->message;
        $created = $comment->createdAt;
        // Get more data...

        echo "<p>".$name." wrote:<br/>";
        echo $comment."<br/>";
        echo $created."</p>";
        $i++;
    }

    // cursor through until today
    if ($i == 100) {
        $cursor = $cursor->next;
        $i = 0;
        listcomments($endpoint,$cursor);
        /* uncomment to only run $j number of iterations
        $j++;
        if ($j < 10) {
            listcomments($endpoint,$cursor,$j);
        }*/
    }
}

?>

Thanks a lot!!! But what do we need exactly for the $thread (URL of thread) and $cursor? BTW, can we only have 100 comments at most?? — Kenneth Yang, Feb 26 '13 at 09:15
The URL of the thread is just the URL of the page the comments are on. In this case it's http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/25/tech/innovation/google-glass-privacy-andrew-keen/index.html -- The cursor value is pulled from the API response, and represents the next set of 100 comments. The script will go until there are no more comments left. — Ryan V, Feb 27 '13 at 05:39
I have set $shortname as 'cnn' (var disqus_shortname = 'cnn';) and $thread as 'link:' and kept $cursor empty, but it turns out "Error parsing json". Do i miss anything?? — Kenneth Yang, Feb 27 '13 at 07:11
Also i tried to set $thread as $thread = 'ident:2013/02/25/tech/mobile/mobile-virtual-reality-android/index.html>'; (revealed on CNN html source code) , but it didn't work. — Kenneth Yang, Feb 27 '13 at 07:23
Remove the <> brackets, they were only placeholders. Also, links need to be full URLs with the 'http://' part — Ryan V, Feb 27 '13 at 18:51

iChux · Answer 2 · 2021-07-20T04:16:01.867

Just an addition: to get the url of disqus comments on any page that it's found, run this JavaScript code in the web browser console:

var visit = function () {
var url = document.querySelector('div#disqus_thread iframe').src;

String.prototype.startsWith = function (check) {
    return(this.indexOf(check) == 0);
};

if (!url.startsWith('https://')) return url.slice(0, 4) + "s" + url.slice(4);

return url;
}();

Since the variable is now in 'visit'

console.log(visit);

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered May 28 '15 at 09:30

without api:

#disqus_thread {
  position: relative;
  height: 300px;
  background-color: #fff;
  overflow: hidden;
}
#disqus_thread:after {
  content: "";
  display: block;
  height: 10px;
  width: 100%;
  position: absolute;
  bottom: 0;
  background: white;
}
#disqus_thread.loaded {
  height: auto;
}
#disqus_thread.loaded:after{
    height:55px;
}
#disqus-load {
  text-align: center;
  color: #fff;
  padding: 11px 14px;
  font-size: 13px;
  font-weight: 500;
  display: block;
  text-align: center;
  border: none;
  background: rgba(29,47,58,.6);
  line-height: 1.1;
  border-radius: 3px;
  font-weight: 500;
  transition: background .2s;
  text-shadow: none;
  cursor:pointer;
}

<div class="disqus-comments">
    <div id='disqus_thread'></div>
    <div id='disqus-load'>Load comments</div>
</div>

<script type="text/javascript">


 $(document).ready(function() {
    var disqus_shortname = 'testare-123';

    (function() {
        var dsq = document.createElement('script'); dsq.type = 'text/javascript'; dsq.async = true;
        dsq.src = '//' + disqus_shortname + '.disqus.com/embed.js';
        (document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0] || document.getElementsByTagName('body')[0]).appendChild(dsq);
    })();
        $('#disqus-load').on('click', function(){ 

        $.ajax({
            type: "GET",
            url: "http://" + disqus_shortname + ".disqus.com/embed.js",
            dataType: "script",
            cache: true
        });

        $(this).fadeOut();
        $('#disqus_thread').addClass('loaded');
    });
});
    /* * * CONFIGURATION VARIABLES * * */
    // var disqus_shortname = 'testare-123';

    // /* * * DON'T EDIT BELOW THIS LINE * * */
    // (function() {
    //  var dsq = document.createElement('script'); dsq.type = 'text/javascript'; dsq.async = true;
    //  dsq.src = '//' + disqus_shortname + '.disqus.com/embed.js';
    //  (document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0] || document.getElementsByTagName('body')[0]).appendChild(dsq);
    // })();
</script>
<noscript>Please enable JavaScript to view the <a href="https://disqus.com/?ref_noscript" rel="nofollow">comments powered by Disqus.</a></noscript>

How to get all the comments from Disqus?

3 Answers3

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