display most commented posts last month wordpress - php

Question

I am trying to display most commented posts of certain category last month.
This is my code for now, I cant figure out what is wrong here, any ideas?
<?php
function filter_where( $where = '' ) {
$where .= " AND post_date > '" . date('Y-m-d', strtotime('-30 days')) . "'";
return $where;
}
add_filter( 'posts_where', 'filter_where' );
$the_query = new WP_Query(array( 'posts_per_page' => 3, 'cat' => 2, 'orderby' => 'comment_count date', 'order'=> 'DESC' ));
remove_filter( 'posts_where', 'filter_where' );
?>
<?php while ( $the_query->have_posts() ) : $the_query->the_post();
echo get_the_title();
// and rest of content
endwhile;
wp_reset_postdata(); ?>
edit: p.s. btw I am using Vkontakte Api plugin for my comments. May be the problem is here, because this code actually works fine on other site. But, get_comments_number() shows the correct number, why then orderby => comment_count doesnt work?

Answer 1

You have to use date_query, for this.
$args = [
'posts_per_page' => 3,
'post_type' => 'post',
'date_query' => [
[
'year' => date('Y', strtotime(date('Y-m-d') . " -1 month")),
'month' => date('m', strtotime(date('Y-m-d') . " -1 month"))
]
],
'orderby' => 'comment_count',
'order' => 'DESC'
];
$posts = new WP_Query($args);
//$posts = get_posts($args);
//print_r($posts);
The MySQL query will be for getting the popular post of last month will be: (assuming NOW() = 13 Feb 2017)
SELECT
posts.ID,
posts.post_title,
posts.post_date
FROM
wp_posts AS posts
WHERE
YEAR (posts.post_date) = 2017
AND MONTH (posts.post_date) = 1
AND posts.post_type = 'post'
AND posts.post_status = 'publish'
ORDER BY
posts.comment_count DESC
LIMIT 0, 3;
Hope this helps!