exit
Just a warning to anybody using the preg_match function to determine what browser the viewer is using. I found with google chrome the array contains the following entries;
(Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US) AppleWebKit/533.4 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/5.0.375.126 Safari/533.4
As I was using preg_match('/Chrome/i',$u_agent)) and preg_match('/Safari/i',$u_agent)) i found my script was reporting browsers as safari when infact the browser in use was google chrome.
get_browser
(PHP 4, PHP 5)
get_browser — Tells what the user's browser is capable of
Description
Attempts to determine the capabilities of the user's browser, by looking up the browser's information in the browscap.ini file.
Parameters
- user_agent
-
The User Agent to be analyzed. By default, the value of HTTP User-Agent header is used; however, you can alter this (i.e., look up another browser's info) by passing this parameter.
You can bypass this parameter with a NULL value.
- return_array
-
If set to TRUE, this function will return an array instead of an object.
Return Values
The information is returned in an object or an array which will contain various data elements representing, for instance, the browser's major and minor version numbers and ID string; TRUE/FALSE values for features such as frames, JavaScript, and cookies; and so forth.
The cookies value simply means that the browser itself is capable of accepting cookies and does not mean the user has enabled the browser to accept cookies or not. The only way to test if cookies are accepted is to set one with setcookie(), reload, and check for the value.
Changelog
| Version | Description |
|---|---|
| 4.3.2 | The optional parameter return_array was added. |
Examples
Example #1 Listing all information about the users browser
<?php
echo $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'] . "\n\n";
$browser = get_browser(null, true);
print_r($browser);
?>
The above example will output something similar to:
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040803 Firefox/0.9.3
Array
(
[browser_name_regex] => ^mozilla/5\.0 (windows; .; windows nt 5\.1; .*rv:.*) gecko/.* firefox/0\.9.*$
[browser_name_pattern] => Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; ?; Windows NT 5.1; *rv:*) Gecko/* Firefox/0.9*
[parent] => Firefox 0.9
[platform] => WinXP
[browser] => Firefox
[version] => 0.9
[majorver] => 0
[minorver] => 9
[cssversion] => 2
[frames] => 1
[iframes] => 1
[tables] => 1
[cookies] => 1
[backgroundsounds] =>
[vbscript] =>
[javascript] => 1
[javaapplets] => 1
[activexcontrols] =>
[cdf] =>
[aol] =>
[beta] => 1
[win16] =>
[crawler] =>
[stripper] =>
[wap] =>
[netclr] =>
)
Notes
Note:
In order for this to work, your browscap configuration setting in php.ini must point to the correct location of the browscap.ini file on your system.
browscap.ini is not bundled with PHP, but you may find an up-to-date » php_browscap.ini file here.
While browscap.ini contains information on many browsers, it relies on user updates to keep the database current. The format of the file is fairly self-explanatory.
add a note
User Contributed Notesget_browser
henda dot exe at gmail dot com
16-Aug-2010 06:27
16-Aug-2010 06:27
Becheru Petru-Ioan
05-Apr-2010 12:39
05-Apr-2010 12:39
IE has a nasty bug called the Peekaboo bug that affected my website. I found that printing a '_' before the html tag of the webpage gets rid of this nasty bug. Using code inspirated by comment bellow here is the code that detects if a visitor is using internet explorer:
<?php
$known = array('msie', 'firefox', 'safari', 'webkit', 'opera', 'netscape', 'konqueror', 'gecko');
preg_match_all( '#(?<browser>' . join('|', $known) .
')[/ ]+(?<version>[0-9]+(?:\.[0-9]+)?)#', strtolower( $_SERVER[ 'HTTP_USER_AGENT ' ]), $browser );
if($browser['browser'][0]=='msie') print('_');
?>
Brinley Ang
02-Apr-2010 05:38
02-Apr-2010 05:38
This is the latest format of the array returned from this call
Array
{
[browser_name_regex] => ^mozilla/5\.0 (x11; .*; .*linux.*; .*; rv:1\.9\..*) gecko/.* firefox/3\.5.*$
[browser_name_pattern] => Mozilla/5.0 (X11; *; *Linux*; *; rv:1.9.*) Gecko/* Firefox/3.5*
[parent] => Firefox 3.5
[platform] => Linux
[browser] => Firefox
[version] => 3.5
[majorver] => 3
[minorver] => 5
[frames] => 1
[iframes] => 1
[tables] => 1
[cookies] => 1
[javaapplets] => 1
[javascript] => 1
[cssversion] => 3
[supportscss] => 1
[alpha] =>
[beta] =>
[win16] =>
[win32] =>
[win64] =>
[backgroundsounds] =>
[cdf] =>
[vbscript] =>
[activexcontrols] =>
[isbanned] =>
[ismobiledevice] =>
[issyndicationreader] =>
[crawler] =>
[aol] =>
[aolversion] => 0
}
robert at broofa dot com
18-Jul-2009 10:33
18-Jul-2009 10:33
If you're just finding this API, note that you may want to use a lighter-weight
browser detection script. get_browser() requires the "browscap.ini" file,
which is 300KB+. Loading and processing this file will likely impact script
performance. Although it surely provides excellent detection results, in most
cases a much simpler method can be just as effective. This is why so many
previous commenters have provided alternate implementations.
Here's the solution I ended up using, which I've tested on the agents listed at
http://whatsmyuseragent.com/CommonUserAgents.asp It has the advantage of being
compact and reasonably easy to extend (just add entries to the $known array
defined at the top). It should be fairly performant as well, since it doesn't
do any iteratoin or recursion.
<?php
function browser_info($agent=null) {
// Declare known browsers to look for
$known = array('msie', 'firefox', 'safari', 'webkit', 'opera', 'netscape',
'konqueror', 'gecko');
// Clean up agent and build regex that matches phrases for known browsers
// (e.g. "Firefox/2.0" or "MSIE 6.0" (This only matches the major and minor
// version numbers. E.g. "2.0.0.6" is parsed as simply "2.0"
$agent = strtolower($agent ? $agent : $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT']);
$pattern = '#(?<browser>' . join('|', $known) .
')[/ ]+(?<version>[0-9]+(?:\.[0-9]+)?)#';
// Find all phrases (or return empty array if none found)
if (!preg_match_all($pattern, $agent, $matches)) return array();
// Since some UAs have more than one phrase (e.g Firefox has a Gecko phrase,
// Opera 7,8 have a MSIE phrase), use the last one found (the right-most one
// in the UA). That's usually the most correct.
$i = count($matches['browser'])-1;
return array($matches['browser'][$i] => $matches['version'][$i]);
}
?>
This returns an array with the detected browser as the key, and the version as
the value, and also sets 'browser' and 'version' keys. For example on Firefox
3.5:
<?php
$ua = browser_info();
print_r($ua);
/* Yields ...
Array
(
[firefox] => 3.5
[browser] => firefox
[version] => 3.5
)
*/
// Various browser tests you can do with the returned array ...
if ($ua['firefox']) ... // true
if ($ua['firefox'] > 3) ... // true
if ($ua['firefox'] > 4) ... // false
if ($ua['browser'] == 'firefox') ... // true
if ($ua['version'] > 3.5) ... // true
if ($ua['msie']) ... // false ('msie' key not defined)
if ($ua['opera'] > 3) ... // false ('opera' key not defined)
if ($ua['safari'] < 3) ... // false also ('safari' key not defined)
?>
Steve Perkins
22-Jun-2009 01:11
22-Jun-2009 01:11
This is a simple class to detect the client browser and version using regular expressions.
<?PHP
class Browser
{
private $props = array("Version" => "0.0.0",
"Name" => "unknown",
"Agent" => "unknown") ;
public function __Construct()
{
$browsers = array("firefox", "msie", "opera", "chrome", "safari",
"mozilla", "seamonkey", "konqueror", "netscape",
"gecko", "navigator", "mosaic", "lynx", "amaya",
"omniweb", "avant", "camino", "flock", "aol");
$this->Agent = strtolower($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT']);
foreach($browsers as $browser)
{
if (preg_match("#($browser)[/ ]?([0-9.]*)#", $this->Agent, $match))
{
$this->Name = $match[1] ;
$this->Version = $match[2] ;
break ;
}
}
}
public function __Get($name)
{
if (!array_key_exists($name, $this->props))
{
die "No such property or function $name)" ;
}
return $this->props[$name] ;
}
public function __Set($name, $val)
{
if (!array_key_exists($name, $this->props))
{
SimpleError("No such property or function.", "Failed to set $name", $this->props) ;
die ;
}
$this->props[$name] = $val ;
}
}
?>
example code
<?PHP
$browser = new Browser ;
echo "$Browser->Name $Browser->Version" ;
?>
result when client using Firefox 3.0.11
firefox 3.0.11
result when client using unknown browser
unknown 0.0.0
etc etc
Steve Perkins
21-Jun-2009 06:42
21-Jun-2009 06:42
This is a simple class to detect the client browser and version using regular expressions.
<?PHP
class Browser extends BaseObjects_PropertyArray
{
private $props = array("Version" => "0.0.0",
"Name" => "unknown",
"Agent" => "unknown",
"AllowsHeaderRedirect" => true) ;
public function __Construct()
{
$browsers = array("firefox", "msie", "opera", "chrome", "safari",
"mozilla", "seamonkey", "konqueror", "netscape",
"gecko", "navigator", "mosaic", "lynx", "amaya",
"omniweb", "avant", "camino", "flock", "aol");
$this->Agent = strtolower($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT']);
foreach($browsers as $browser)
{
if (preg_match("#($browser)[/ ]?([0-9.]*)#", $this->Agent, $match))
{
$this->Name = $match[1] ;
$this->Version = $match[2] ;
break ;
}
}
$this->AllowsHeaderRedirect = !($this->Name == "msie" && $this->Version < 7) ;
}
public function __Get($name)
{
if (!array_key_exists($name, $this->props))
{
die "No such property or function $name)" ;
}
return $this->props[$name] ;
}
}
?>
example code
<?PHP
$browser = new Browser ;
echo "$Browser->Name $Browser->Version" ;
?>
result when client using Firefox 3.0.11
firefox 3.0.11
result when client using unknown browser
unknown 0.0.0
etc etc
Mattkun Koder
28-Apr-2009 04:00
28-Apr-2009 04:00
If you want to use: ceo /a/ mmg5 /./ com 's improved version and STILL detect Google Chrome you need to move CHROME earlier on the list Before Safari otherwise it will be detected as safari.
$browser_list = 'msie firefox chrome konqueror safari netscape navigator opera mosaic lynx amaya omniweb avant camino flock seamonkey aol mozilla gecko';
Daniel Frechette
17-Feb-2009 01:40
17-Feb-2009 01:40
A newer version for those only interested in identifying A-grade browsers. The code was ported in part from JQuery 1.3.1.
<?php
class Browser {
/**
Figure out what browser is used, its version and the platform it is
running on.
The following code was ported in part from JQuery v1.3.1
*/
public static function detect() {
$userAgent = strtolower($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT']);
// Identify the browser. Check Opera and Safari first in case of spoof. Let Google Chrome be identified as Safari.
if (preg_match('/opera/', $userAgent)) {
$name = 'opera';
}
elseif (preg_match('/webkit/', $userAgent)) {
$name = 'safari';
}
elseif (preg_match('/msie/', $userAgent)) {
$name = 'msie';
}
elseif (preg_match('/mozilla/', $userAgent) && !preg_match('/compatible/', $userAgent)) {
$name = 'mozilla';
}
else {
$name = 'unrecognized';
}
// What version?
if (preg_match('/.+(?:rv|it|ra|ie)[\/: ]([\d.]+)/', $userAgent, $matches)) {
$version = $matches[1];
}
else {
$version = 'unknown';
}
// Running on what platform?
if (preg_match('/linux/', $userAgent)) {
$platform = 'linux';
}
elseif (preg_match('/macintosh|mac os x/', $userAgent)) {
$platform = 'mac';
}
elseif (preg_match('/windows|win32/', $userAgent)) {
$platform = 'windows';
}
else {
$platform = 'unrecognized';
}
return array(
'name' => $name,
'version' => $version,
'platform' => $platform,
'userAgent' => $userAgent
);
}
}
Usage:
$browser = TkBrowser::detect();
echo 'You browser is '.$browser['name'].' version '.$browser['version'].' running on '.$browser['platform'];
?>
Best regards,
Daniel
assadvirgo at gmail dot com
13-Feb-2009 01:40
13-Feb-2009 01:40
This is a very useful function to get user browser. A great utility function for those are fed up of get_browser() issues :)
<?php
function get_user_browser()
{
$u_agent = $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'];
$ub = '';
if(preg_match('/MSIE/i',$u_agent))
{
$ub = "ie";
}
elseif(preg_match('/Firefox/i',$u_agent))
{
$ub = "firefox";
}
elseif(preg_match('/Safari/i',$u_agent))
{
$ub = "safari";
}
elseif(preg_match('/Chrome/i',$u_agent))
{
$ub = "chrome";
}
elseif(preg_match('/Flock/i',$u_agent))
{
$ub = "flock";
}
elseif(preg_match('/Opera/i',$u_agent))
{
$ub = "opera";
}
return $ub;
}
?>
jesdisciple [at] gmail -dawt- com
19-Nov-2007 05:13
19-Nov-2007 05:13
Use this to ensure that the costly call in its standard form never needs to be repeated:
<?php
function getBrowser(){
static $browser;//No accident can arise from depending on an unset variable.
if(!isset($browser)){
$browser = get_browser($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT']);
}
return $browser;
}
?>
Steffen
19-Oct-2007 12:59
19-Oct-2007 12:59
Keep in mind that get_browser(); really slows down your application. It takes about 22 ms to execute on an idle server with Ubuntu Linux, Apache 2, PHP 5.1.3.
digibrisk at gmail dot NOSPAM dot SPAMNO dot com
06-Oct-2007 02:20
06-Oct-2007 02:20
If the "browscap" directive isn't set in your server's php.ini, then an error warning is shown. Just in case, you could make a call to ini_get() to check if the browscap directive is set before using browser_get().
<?php
if(ini_get("browscap")) {
$browser = get_browse(null, true);
}
?>
mike at mike-griffiths dot co dot uk
23-Jul-2007 11:41
23-Jul-2007 11:41
You should not rely on just this for cross-browser compatibility issues. Good practice would be to include HTML if-statements for IE stylesheets as well as dynamically checking the browser type.
ansar dot ahmed at impelsys dot com
22-Mar-2007 11:01
22-Mar-2007 11:01
We are using get_browser() function for useragent Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 4.01; Windows NT) the get_browser function is returning as Default Browser and Platform = unknown.
So i added this to my browscap.ini manually:
[Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 4.01; Windows NT)]
Parent=IE 4.01
Platform=WinNT
sam
23-Oct-2006 12:09
23-Oct-2006 12:09
I thought this function might be useful to those without access to the php.ini file (such as those on a shared hosting system):
<?php
function php_get_browser($agent = NULL){
$agent=$agent?$agent:$_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'];
$yu=array();
$q_s=array("#\.#","#\*#","#\?#");
$q_r=array("\.",".*",".?");
$brows=parse_ini_file("php_browscap.ini",true);
foreach($brows as $k=>$t){
if(fnmatch($k,$agent)){
$yu['browser_name_pattern']=$k;
$pat=preg_replace($q_s,$q_r,$k);
$yu['browser_name_regex']=strtolower("^$pat$");
foreach($brows as $g=>$r){
if($t['Parent']==$g){
foreach($brows as $a=>$b){
if($r['Parent']==$a){
$yu=array_merge($yu,$b,$r,$t);
foreach($yu as $d=>$z){
$l=strtolower($d);
$hu[$l]=$z;
}
}
}
}
}
break;
}
}
return $hu;
}
?>
define the location of php_browscap.ini wherever you want
always returns an array, same functionality as get_browser(NULL,true)
Hope someone finds it useful!
adspeed.com
02-Sep-2005 07:06
02-Sep-2005 07:06
Here is what we do to fix the parsing error messages for php_browscap.ini downloaded from Gary's website.
<?php
// fix the browsecap.ini for php
$v= file_get_contents('php_browscap.ini');
$v= preg_replace("/\r/","",$v);
$v= preg_replace('/="(.*)"/i','=\\1',$v);
$v= preg_replace("/platform=(.*)/i","platform=\"\\1\"",$v);
$v= preg_replace("/parent=(.*)/i","parent=\"\\1\"",$v);
$v= preg_replace("/minorver=(.*)/i","minorver=\"\\1\"",$v);
$v= preg_replace("/majorver=(.*)/i","majorver=\"\\1\"",$v);
$v= preg_replace("/version=(.*)/i","version=\"\\1\"",$v);
$v= preg_replace("/browser=(.*)/i","browser=\"\\1\"",$v);
$v= str_replace("[*]","*",$v);
file_put_contents('browscap.ini',$v);
?>
max at phpexpert dot de
26-Mar-2004 04:14
26-Mar-2004 04:14
Be aware of the fact that this function shows what a specific browser might be able to show, but NOT what the user has turned on/off.
So maybe this function tells you that the browser is abel to to javascript even when javascript is turned off by the user.
bishop
05-Aug-2003 08:46
05-Aug-2003 08:46
PHP is sensitive to characters outside the range [ A-Za-z0-9_] as values in .ini files. For example
browser=Opera (Bork Version)
causes PHP to complain, as it doesn't like the parentheses.
If you place quotation marks around the values for all keys in the browscap.ini file, you'll save yourself parsing problems. Do this in eg vi with %s/=\(.*\)/="\1"/g
You could of course use PHP itself to fixup the file. Exercise left to the reader.
verx at implix dot com
09-Dec-2002 11:57
09-Dec-2002 11:57
Please keep in mind that you should somehow (for example in session) cache the required results of get_browser() because it really slows thinks down.
We have experienced that without querying for browser data our scripts would run 120-130% faster. the explanation is that over 200kb long file (browscap.ini) has to be loaded and parsed everytime someone access any page (we need browser results on all pages).
So keep results in session and expect a performance boost.
les at hazlewood dot com
04-Sep-2001 03:57
04-Sep-2001 03:57
phpSniff (noted in a few places above) is absolutely fantastic. I just installed it, and it is a godsend! It now handles all of my session information needed to go in my database. Thanks for you folks who posted that great Sourceforge resource! http://phpsniff.sourceforge.net/
nick at category4 dot com
13-Jun-2001 01:21
13-Jun-2001 01:21
Here's a quick way to test for a Netscape browser. IE and Konqueror and several others call themselves "Mozilla", but they always qualify it with the word "compatible."
$isns = stristr($HTTP_USER_AGENT, "Mozilla") && (!(stristr($HTTP_USER_AGENT, "compatible")));
triad at df dot lth dot se
31-Jul-2000 01:17
31-Jul-2000 01:17
The only way browscap examines the target browser is through the HTTP_USER_AGENT so there is no way you can determine installed plug-ins. The only way to do that is through client-side JavaScripts.