HTTP::BrowserDetect(3)

NAME
HTTP::BrowserDetect - Determine Web browser, version, and platform from an HTTP user agent string

VERSION
Version 1.10

SYNOPSIS
    use HTTP::BrowserDetect;

    my $browser = new HTTP::BrowserDetect($user_agent_string);

    # Detect operating system
    if ($browser->windows) {
      if ($browser->winnt) ...
      if ($browser->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.

  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

  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

  device()
Returns the method name of the actual hardware, if it can be detected. Currently returns one of: blackberry, iphone, ipod or ipad Returns UNDEF if no hardware can be detected

  device_name()
Returns a human formatted version of the hardware device name. These names are subject to change and are really meant for display purposes. You should use the device() method in your logic. Returns one of: BlackBerry, iPhone, iPod or iPad. Returns UNDEF if no hardware can be detected.

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

chrome

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

ipad

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

Maros Kollar

Jay Rifkin

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 <http://github.com/oalders/http-browserdetect>

•   RT: CPAN's request tracker

    http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/Bugs.html?Dist=HTTP-BrowserDetect <http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/Bugs.html?Dist=HTTP-BrowserDetect>

•   AnnoCPAN: Annotated CPAN documentation

    http://annocpan.org/dist/HTTP-BrowserDetect <http://annocpan.org/dist/HTTP-BrowserDetect>

•   CPAN Ratings

    http://cpanratings.perl.org/d/HTTP-BrowserDetect <http://cpanratings.perl.org/d/HTTP-BrowserDetect>

•   Search CPAN

    http://search.cpan.org/dist/HTTP-BrowserDetect/ <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.