Weird ability to modify comments to be empty

[lbones]

When I was viewing ticket #61244, I originally misinterpreted the issue. I thought that the user wanted to avoid exporting comments that have no content, but I realized that isn't actually allowed through the WordPress editor.

However, I was trying to recreate the empty comment issue, and realized that users are able to edit comments to be empty.

I did some initial digging and ​WP_REST_Comments_Controller has a create_item that contains this check:

		// Do not allow comments to be created with a non-default type.
		if ( ! empty( $request['type'] ) && 'comment' !== $request['type'] ) {
			return new WP_Error(
				'rest_invalid_comment_type',
				__( 'Cannot create a comment with that type.' ),
				array( 'status' => 400 )
			);
		}

and an update_item() function. I think that adding this or something similar to the update_item function would resolve this issue.

[lbones]

This is in PHP 8.2 and WP 6.6.2, and it shows that you can edit comments to be null.

[sabernhardt]

Hi and welcome to WordPress Core Trac!

There are reasons to allow empty comments, especially when removing something, but the allow_empty_comment hook is false by default.

Related: #16979, r49303, ticket:58168#comment:4

[hellofromTonya]

Doing triage today for tickets flagging 6.6.x as the version that introduced the reported issue. Tested with 6.3 and can edit to remove the comment's content. Removing the Version, as it predates 6.6.