comment_form() function doesn't call `comment_form_after_fields` action if fields was set to empty array

[Guss77]

This is apparently since WordPress 4.4 - before that, if you called:

commend_form([ 'fields' => [] ]);

Then the process for not logged in users would be:

• comment_form_before_fields action
• for each field in fields (if any):
  • comment_form_field_<name> filter
• comment_form_after_fields action

In 4.4 this changed to be:

• for each field in fields (if any):
  • if the field is "comment" - comment_form_field_comment filter
  • otherwise, and if user is not logged in:
    • if its the first field - comment_form_before_fields
    • comment_form_field_<name> filter
    • if its the last field - comment_form_after_fields

it is easy to see that if the theme designer decided not to use any standard field (maybe because she wants to do something crazy, or generate the standard field in comment_form_before_fields or comment_form_after_fields action), then their actions would not be called.

This is still an issue in 5.0

[earnjam]

Looks like this behavior was broken in [35723], which introduced the comment_form_fields filter. The fact that that change was 3.5 years ago and this is the only report of it being a problem makes me not want to adjust the behavior of the hooks at this point.

The proper way to modify the default comment fields now would be to use the comment_form_fields filter. If done that way to insert other different fields, then the other two hooks would fire. It doesn't make sense to fire a _fields_before or _fields_after hook if there are no fields.

As such, I'm going to close this as a wontfix. Feel free to respond if you disagree and we can continue the discussion.