object get_browser(string [user_agent]);get_browser() attempts to determine the capabilities of the user's browser. This is done by looking up the browser's information in the browscap.ini file. By default, the value of $HTTP_USER_AGENT is used; however, you can alter this (i.e., look up another browser's info) by passing the optional user_agent parameter to get_browser().
The information is returned in an object, 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.
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.
The following example shows how one might list all available information retrieved about the user's browser.
Example 1. get_browser() example <?php
function list_array( $array ) {
while ( list( $key, $value ) = each( $array ) ) {
$str .= "<b>$key:</b> $value<br>\n";
}
return $str;
}
echo "$HTTP_USER_AGENT<hr>\n";
$browser = get_browser();
echo list_array( (array) $browser );
?>
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The output of the above script would look something like this:
Mozilla/4.5 [en] (X11; U; Linux 2.2.9 i586)<hr> <b>browser_name_pattern:</b> Mozilla/4\.5.*<br> <b>parent:</b> Netscape 4.0<br> <b>platform:</b> Unknown<br> <b>majorver:</b> 4<br> <b>minorver:</b> 5<br> <b>browser:</b> Netscape<br> <b>version:</b> 4<br> <b>frames:</b> 1<br> <b>tables:</b> 1<br> <b>cookies:</b> 1<br> <b>backgroundsounds:</b> <br> <b>vbscript:</b> <br> <b>javascript:</b> 1<br> <b>javaapplets:</b> 1<br> <b>activexcontrols:</b> <br> <b>beta:</b> <br> <b>crawler:</b> <br> <b>authenticodeupdate:</b> <br> <b>msn:</b> <br>
In order for this to work, your browscap configuration file setting must point to the correct location of the browscap.ini file.
For more information (including locations from which you may obtain a browscap.ini file), check the PHP FAQ at http://www.php.net/FAQ.html.
Note: browscap support was added to PHP in version 3.0b2.