SYNOPSIS use HTTP::BrowserDetect; my $browser = HTTP::BrowserDetect->new($user_agent_string); # Detect operating system if ($browser->windows) { if ($browser->winnt) ... if ($browser->win95) ... } print "Mac\n" if $browser->mac; # Detect browser vendor and version print "Netscape\n" if $browser->netscape; print "MSIE\n" if $browser->ie; if (browser->public_major(4)) { if ($browser->public_minor() > .5) { ... } } if ($browser->public_version() > 4) { ...; } 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. 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. SUBROUTINES/METHODS user_agent() Returns the value of the user agent string. Calling this method with a parameter has now been deprecated and this feature will be removed in an upcoming release. 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: android, audrey, avantgo, blackberry, dsi, iopener, ipad, iphone, ipod, kindle, n3ds, palm, ps3, psp, wap, webos. 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: Android, Audrey, BlackBerry, Nintendo DSi, iopener, iPad, iPhone, iPod, Amazon Kindle, Nintendo 3DS, Palm, Sony PlayStation 3, Sony Playstation Portable, WAP capable phone, webOS. Also Windows-based smartphones will output various different names like HTC T7575. Returns undef if this is not a device or if no device name can be detected. browser_properties() Returns a list of the browser properties, that is, all of the tests that passed for the provided user_agent string. Operating systems, devices, browser names, mobile and robots are all browser properties. 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 (major and minor) as a string. public_major() Returns the major part of the version as a string. For example, for Chrome 36.0.1985.67, this returns "36". Returns undef if no version information can be detected. public_minor() Returns the minor part of the version as a string. This includes the decimal point; for example, for Chrome 36.0.1985.67, this returns ".0". Returns undef if no version information can be detected. public_beta() Returns any part of the version after the major and minor version, as a string. For example, for Chrome 36.0.1985.67, this returns ".1985.67". The beta part of the string can contain any type of alphanumeric characters. Returns undef if no version information can be detected. Returns an empty string if version information is detected but it contains only a major and minor version with nothing following. version($version) This is probably not what you want. Please use either public_version() or engine_version() instead. Returns the version as a string. If passed a parameter, returns true if it equals the browser major version. This function returns wrong values for some Safari versions, for compatibility with earlier code. public_version() returns correct version numbers for Safari. major($major) This is probably not what you want. Please use either public_major() or engine_major() instead. Returns the integer portion of the browser version as a string. If passed a parameter, returns true if it equals the browser major version. This function returns wrong values for some Safari versions, for compatibility with earlier code. public_version() returns correct version numbers for Safari. minor($minor) This is probably not what you want. Please use either public_minor() or engine_minor() instead. Returns the decimal portion of the browser version as a string. If passed a parameter, returns true if equals the minor version. This function returns wrong values for some Safari versions, for compatibility with earlier code. public_version() returns correct version numbers for Safari. beta($beta) This is probably not what you want. Please use public_beta() instead. Returns the beta version, consisting of any characters after the major and minor version number, as a string. This function returns wrong values for some Safari versions, for compatibility with earlier code. public_version() returns correct version numbers for Safari. Detecting Rendering Engine engine_string() Returns one of the following: Gecko, KHTML, Trident, MSIE, NetFront 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 and Trident. Returns undef for all other engines. The output is simply engine_major added with engine_minor. engine_major() Returns the major version number of the rendering engine. Currently this only returns a version number for Gecko and Trident. 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 and Trident. 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 win8 win8_0 win8_1 wince winphone winphone7 winphone7_5 winphone8 dotnet() chromeos() firefoxos() mac() mac68k macppc macosx ios os2() bb10() rimtabletos() 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() ps3gameos() pspgameos() 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, WinME, WinNT, Win2K, WinXP, Win2k3, WinVista, Win7, Win8, Win8.1, Windows Phone, Mac, Mac OS X, iOS, Win3x, OS2, Unix, Linux, Chrome OS, Firefox OS, Playstation 3 GameOS, Playstation Portable GameOS, RIM Tablet OS, BlackBerry 10 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. aol aol3 aol4 aol5 aol6 chrome curl emacs firefox gecko icab ie ie3 ie4 ie4up ie5 ie5up ie55 ie55up ie6 ie7 ie8 ie9 ie10 ie11 ie_compat_mode The ie_compat_mode is used to determine if the IE user agent is for the compatibility mode view, in which case the real version of IE is higher than that detected. The true version of IE can be inferred from the version of Trident in the engine_version method. java konqueror lotusnotes lynx links elinks mobile_safari mosaic mozilla neoplanet neoplanet2 netfront netscape nav2 nav3 nav4 nav4up nav45 nav45up navgold nav6 nav6up opera opera3 opera4 opera5 opera6 opera7 realplayer The realplayer method above tests for the presence of either the RealPlayer plug-in "(r1 " or the browser "RealPlayer". realplayer_browser The realplayer_browser method tests for the presence of the RealPlayer browser (but returns 0 for the plugin). safari staroffice webtv Netscape 6, even though its called six, in the User-Agent string has version number 5. The nav6 and nav6up methods correctly handle this quirk. The Firefox test correctly detects the older-named versions of the browser (Phoenix, Firebird). browser_string() Returns undef on failure. Otherwise returns one of the following: Netscape, Firefox, Safari, Chrome, MSIE, WebTV, AOL Browser, Opera, Mosaic, Lynx, Links, ELinks, RealPlayer, IceWeasel, curl, puf, NetFront, Mobile Safari, BlackBerry, Obigo, Nintendo DSi, Nintendo 3DS, StarOffice, Lotus Notes, iCab, BrowseX, Silk. gecko_version() If a Gecko rendering engine is used (as in Mozilla or Firefox), 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 dsi iopener iphone ipod ipad kindle n3ds obigo palm webos wap psp ps3 mobile() Returns true if the browser appears to belong to a handheld device. tablet() Returns true if the browser appears to belong to a tablet 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. ahrefs altavista askjeeves baidu facebook getright google googleadsbot googleadsense googlemobile infoseek linkexchange lwp lycos mj12bot msn (same as bing) puf slurp webcrawler wget yahoo yandex yandeximages CREDITS 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: cho45 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 Luke Saunders Jacob Rask Heiko Weber Jon Jensen Jesse Thompson Graham Barr Enrico Sorcinelli Olivier Bilodeau Yoshiki Kurihara Paul Findlay Uwe Voelker Douglas Christopher Wilson John Oatis Atsushi Kato Ronald J. Kimball Bill Rhodes Thom Blake Aran Deltac yeahoffline David Ihnen Hao Wu Perlover TO DO The _engine() method currently only handles Gecko and Trident. It needs to be expanded to handle other rendering engines. POD coverage is also not 100%. SEE ALSO "Browser ID (User-Agent) Strings", http://www.zytrax.com/tech/web/browser_ids.htm HTML::ParseBrowser. 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 * Reporting Issues https://github.com/oalders/http-browserdetect/issues * AnnoCPAN: Annotated CPAN documentation http://annocpan.org/dist/HTTP-BrowserDetect * CPAN Ratings http://cpanratings.perl.org/d/HTTP-BrowserDetect * Search CPAN https://metacpan.org/module/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. CONTRIBUTING Patches are certainly welcome, with many thanks for the excellent contributions which have already been received. The preferred method of patching would be to fork the GitHub repo and then send me a pull request, but plain old patch files are also welcome. If you're able to add test cases, this will speed up the time to release your changes. Just edit t/useragents.json so that the test coverage includes any changes you have made. Please contact me if you have any questions. This distribution uses Dist::Zilla. If you're not familiar with this module, please see https://github.com/oalders/http-browserdetect/issues/5 for some helpful tips to get you started.