To display the number of comments for an article (for use in an aritcle form), use the following tag: <txp:comments_count />.

This tag will display a number if there is at least one comment to the article. If you would like the number ‘0’ to display when there are zero comments, find /textpattern/publish/taghandlers.php

and replace (approximately line 712):

return ($thisarticle[‘comments_count’] > 0) ? $thisarticle[‘comments_count’] : ‘’;

with

return $thisarticle[‘comments_count’];