NAME
HTTP::BrowserDetect - Determine Web browser, version, and platform from
an HTTP user agent string
VERSION
Version 1.07
SYNOPSIS
use HTTP::BrowserDetect;
my $browser = new HTTP::BrowserDetect($user_agent_string);
# Detect operating system
if ($browser->windows) {
if ($browser->winnt) ...
if ($brorwser->win95) ...
}
print $browser->mac;
# Detect browser vendor and version
print $browser->netscape;
print $browser->ie;
if (browser->major(4)) {
if ($browser->minor() > .5) {
...
}
}
if ($browser->version() > 4) {
...;
}
# Process a different user agent string
$browser->user_agent($another_user_agent_string);
DESCRIPTION
The HTTP::BrowserDetect object does a number of tests on an HTTP user
agent string. The results of these tests are available via methods of
the object.
This module is based upon the JavaScript browser detection code
available at
http://www.mozilla.org/docs/web-developer/sniffer/browser_type.html.
INSTALLATION
In most cases, you can just issue the following commands:
perl Build.PL
./Build
./Build test
./Build install
Please see the documentation for Module::Build if you have questions
about installing to custom locations etc.
CONSTRUCTOR AND STARTUP
new()
HTTP::BrowserDetect->new( $user_agent_string )
The constructor may be called with a user agent string specified.
Otherwise, it will use the value specified by $ENV{'HTTP_USER_AGENT'},
which is set by the web server when calling a CGI script.
You may also use a non-object-oriented interface. For each method, you
may call HTTP::BrowserDetect::method_name(). You will then be working
with a default HTTP::BrowserDetect object that is created behind the
scenes.
SUBROUTINES/METHODS
user_agent($user_agent_string)
Returns the value of the user agent string. When called with a
parameter, it resets the user agent and reperforms all tests on the
string. This way you can process a series of user agent strings (from a
log file, perhaps) without creating a new HTTP::BrowserDetect object
each time.
language()
Returns the language string as it is found in the user agent string.
This will be in the form of an upper case 2 character code. ie: EN, DE,
etc
country()
Returns the country string as it may be found in the user agent string.
This will be in the form of an upper case 2 character code. ie: US, DE,
etc
Detecting Browser Version
Please note that that the version(), major() and minor() methods have
been superceded as of release 1.07 of this module. They are not yet
deprecated, but should be replaced with public_version(), public_major()
and public_minor() in new development.
The reasoning behind this is that version() method will, in the case of
Safari, return the Safari/XXX numbers even when Version/XXX numbers are
present in the UserAgent string. Because this behaviour has been in
place for so long, some clients may have come to rely upon it. So, it
has been retained in the interest of "bugwards compatibility", but in
almost all cases, the numbers returned by public_version(),
public_major() and public_minor() will be what you are looking for.
public_version()
Returns the browser version as a floating-point number.
public_major()
Returns the integer portion of the browser version.
public_minor()
Returns the decimal portion of the browser version as a floating-point
number less than 1. For example, if the version is 4.05, this method
returns .05; if the version is 4.5, this method returns .5.
On occasion a version may have more than one decimal point, such as
'Wget/1.4.5'. The minor version does not include the second decimal
point, or any further digits or decimals.
version($version)
Returns the version as a floating-point number. If passed a parameter,
returns true if it is equal to the version specified by the user agent
string.
major($major)
Returns the integer portion of the browser version. If passed a
parameter, returns true if it equals the browser major version.
minor($minor)
Returns the decimal portion of the browser version as a floating-point
number less than 1. For example, if the version is 4.05, this method
returns .05; if the version is 4.5, this method returns .5. This is a
change in behavior from previous versions of this module, which returned
a string.
If passed a parameter, returns true if equals the minor version.
On occasion a version may have more than one decimal point, such as
'Wget/1.4.5'. The minor version does not include the second decimal
point, or any further digits or decimals.
beta($beta)
Returns any the beta version, consisting of any non-numeric characters
after the version number. For instance, if the user agent string is
'Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0b2; Windows NT)', returns 'b2'. If
passed a parameter, returns true if equal to the beta version. If the
beta starts with a dot, it is thrown away.
Detecting Rendering Engine
engine_string()
Returns one of the following:
Gecko, KHTML, MSIE
Returns undef if no string can be found.
engine_version()
Returns the version number of the rendering engine. Currently this only
returns a version number for Gecko. Returns undef for all other engines.
engine_major()
Returns the major version number of the rendering engine. Currently this
only returns a version number for Gecko. Returns undef for all other
engines.
engine_minor()
Returns the minor version number of the rendering engine. Currently this
only returns a version number for Gecko. Returns undef for all other
engines.
Detecting OS Platform and Version
The following methods are available, each returning a true or false
value. Some methods also test for the operating system version. The
indentations below show the hierarchy of tests (for example, win2k is
considered a type of winnt, which is a type of win32)
windows()
win16 win3x win31
win32
winme win95 win98
winnt
win2k winxp win2k3 winvista win7
dotnet()
mac()
mac68k macppc macosx
os2()
unix()
sun sun4 sun5 suni86 irix irix5 irix6 hpux hpux9 hpux10
aix aix1 aix2 aix3 aix4 linux sco unixware mpras reliant
dec sinix freebsd bsd
vms()
amiga()
It may not be possibile to detect Win98 in Netscape 4.x and earlier. On
Opera 3.0, the userAgent string includes "Windows 95/NT4" on all Win32,
so you can't distinguish between Win95 and WinNT.
os_string()
Returns one of the following strings, or undef. This method exists
solely for compatibility with the HTTP::Headers::UserAgent module.
Win95, Win98, WinNT, Win2K, WinXP, Win2K3, WinVista, Win7, Mac, Mac OS X,
Win3x, OS2, Unix, Linux
Detecting Browser Vendor
The following methods are available, each returning a true or false
value. Some methods also test for the browser version, saving you from
checking the version separately.
netscape nav2 nav3 nav4 nav4up nav45 nav45up navgold nav6 nav6up
gecko
mozilla
firefox
safari
crhome
ie ie3 ie4 ie4up ie5 ie55 ie6 ie7 ie8
neoplanet neoplanet2
mosaic
aol aol3 aol4 aol5 aol6
webtv
opera opera3 opera4 opera5 opera6 opera7
lynx links
emacs
staroffice
lotusnotes
icab
konqueror
java
curl
realplayer
Netscape 6, even though its called six, in the userAgent string has
version number 5. The nav6 and nav6up methods correctly handle this
quirk. The firefox text correctly detects the older-named versions of
the browser (Phoenix, Firebird)
browser_string()
Returns undef on failure. Otherwise returns one of the following:
Firefox, Safari, Chrome, MSIE, etc
To see a complete list of possible browser strings, check the
browser_string() method in the source code.
gecko_version()
If a Gecko rendering engine is used (as in Mozilla or Firebird), returns
the version of the renderer (e.g. 1.3a, 1.7, 1.8) This might be more
useful than the particular browser name or version when correcting for
quirks in different versions of this rendering engine. If no Gecko
browser is being used, or the version number can't be detected, returns
undef.
Detecting Other Devices
The following methods are available, each returning a true or false
value.
android
audrey
avantgo
blackberry
iopener
iphone
ipod
palm
wap
mobile()
Returns true if the browser appears to belong to a handheld device.
robot()
Returns true if the user agent appears to be a robot, spider, crawler,
or other automated Web client.
The following additional methods are available, each returning a true or
false value. This is by no means a complete list of robots that exist on
the Web.
wget
getright
yahoo
altavista
lycos
infoseek
lwp
webcrawler
linkexchange
slurp
google
puf
AUTHOR
Lee Semel, lee@semel.net (Original Author)
Peter Walsham (co-maintainer)
Olaf Alders, "olaf at wundercounter.com" (co-maintainer)
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks to the following for their contributions:
Leonardo Herrera
Denis F. Latypoff
merlynkline
Simon Waters
Toni Cebrin
Florian Merges
david.hilton.p
Steve Purkis
Andrew McGregor
Robin Smidsrod
Richard Noble
Josh Ritter
Mike Clarke
Marc Sebastian Pelzer
Alexey Surikov
TO DO
The _engine() method currently only handles Gecko. It needs to be
expanded to handle other rendering engines.
POD coverage is also not 100%.
If you're able to help out with anything on the TO DO list, please do. A
great deal of the latest improvements have come from patches via RT and
GitHub pull requests. If you're able to submit changes via GitHub, I'm
generally able to get them into a new release fairly quickly.
SEE ALSO
"The Ultimate JavaScript Client Sniffer, Version 3.0",
http://www.mozilla.org/docs/web-developer/sniffer/browser_type.html.
"Browser ID (User-Agent) Strings"
http://www.zytrax.com/tech/web/browser_ids.htm
perl(1), HTTP::Headers, HTTP::Headers::UserAgent.
SUPPORT
You can find documentation for this module with the perldoc command.
perldoc HTTP::BrowserDetect
You can also look for information at:
* GitHub Source Repository
<http://github.com/oalders/http-browserdetect>
* RT: CPAN's request tracker
<http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/Bugs.html?Dist=HTTP-BrowserDetect>
* AnnoCPAN: Annotated CPAN documentation
<http://annocpan.org/dist/HTTP-BrowserDetect>
* CPAN Ratings
<http://cpanratings.perl.org/d/HTTP-BrowserDetect>
* Search CPAN
<http://search.cpan.org/dist/HTTP-BrowserDetect/>
BUGS AND LIMITATIONS
The biggest limitation at this point is the test suite, which really
needs to have many more UserAgent strings to test against.
Patches are certainly welcome, with many thanks to the many
contributions which have already been received. The preferred method of
patching would be to fork the GitHub repo and then send me a pull
requests, but plain old patch files are also welcome.
LICENSE AND COPYRIGHT
Copyright 1999-2010 Lee Semel. All rights reserved. This program is free
software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms
as Perl itself.