I have a requirement where we need to fetch all the first level replies made on a topic. Now when we create a new topic, it also creates a post. In order to create a first level reply on the topic, I make the below API call POST http://discourse-url/posts/ { “raw”: “This is a first level reply on a topic”, “topic_id”: 1234, “reply_to_post_number”: null } Now to retrieve the first level replies, I make the below call with post_id as the ID of the first post created for the topic. This post has the post_number as 1 GET http://discourse-url/posts/{post_id}/replies.json But this returns me an empty array. This is understandable as Discourse treats the top level replies on a topic as posts and not replies. In Discourse terminology, “replies” are made on posts and “posts” are made on topics. I have found a workaround for the same. Rather than sending reply_to_post_number as null, if I send it as 1, the API call for replies also works fine. Below is the sample request: POST http://discourse-url/posts/ { “raw”: “This is a first level reply on a topic”, “topic_id”: 1234, “reply_to_post_number”: 1 } Now I could fetch the first level replies for this topic by making the below API call GET http://discourse-url/posts/{post_id}/replies.json Going by the answer here Posts vs Replies vs Topic, I feel I have made a fundamental change to the structure of the posts in Discourse now. My question is: Can this change break any other functionality in Discourse? Currently I don’t see any issues in the website with this change. But is there something that I might be missing and should be careful about?

Retrieving top level replies on a topic

ManishTripathy (Manish Tripathy) May 25, 2020, 11:51am 2

Could you please help me understanding the side effects of converting posts to replies by changing reply_to_post_number as 1 instead of null?

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