FYI i have fixed my problem but i thought some of you guys might be interested in how i did it.

The 'comments' field was in a different table called 'ORDER_STATUS_HISTORY and had to connect that table to the order exporter before i could reference it.

corrected working code snippet below:

Code:
	case 'full':
		// The file layout is dynamically made 
		$iii = 0;
		$filelayout = array(
	//all columns:
'v_date_purchased'    => $iii++, 
'v_orders_status_name'	=> $iii++,
'v_orders_id'     => $iii++, 
'v_customers_id'    => $iii++, 
'v_customers_name'    => $iii++, 
'v_customers_company'    => $iii++, 
'v_customers_street_address'    => $iii++, 
'v_customers_suburb'    => $iii++, 
'v_customers_city'    => $iii++, 
'v_customers_postcode'    => $iii++, 
//'v_customers_state'    => $iii++, 
'v_customers_country'    => $iii++, 
'v_customers_telephone'    => $iii++, 
'v_customers_email_address'    => $iii++, 
'v_products_model'    => $iii++, 
'v_products_quantity'    => $iii++,
'v_products_price'  => $iii++,
'v_products_name'    => $iii++, 
'v_products_options'    => $iii++, 
'v_products_options_values'    => $iii++, 
'v_orders_comment'     => $iii++,
			);

	$filelayout_sql = "SELECT 
zo.orders_id as v_orders_id,
customers_id as v_customers_id,
customers_name as v_customers_name,
customers_company as v_customers_company,
customers_street_address as v_customers_street_address,
customers_suburb as v_customers_suburb,
customers_city as v_customers_city,
customers_postcode as v_customers_postcode,
customers_country as v_customers_country,
customers_telephone as v_customers_telephone,
customers_email_address as v_customers_email_address,
date_purchased as v_date_purchased,
orders_status_name as v_orders_status_name,
products_model as v_products_model,
products_quantity as v_products_quantity,
products_price as v_products_price,
products_name as v_products_name,
products_options as v_products_options,
products_options_values as v_products_options_values,
osh.comments as v_orders_comment		
FROM ".TABLE_ORDERS_PRODUCTS." zop LEFT JOIN ".TABLE_ORDERS_PRODUCTS_ATTRIBUTES." opa
ON(zop.orders_products_id = opa.orders_products_id), ".TABLE_ORDERS." zo, ".TABLE_ORDERS_STATUS." zos, ".TABLE_ORDERS_STATUS_HISTORY." osh
WHERE zo.orders_id = zop.orders_id
AND zo.orders_status = zos.orders_status_id
";
		
		break;