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# get_browser

get_browser -- Tells what the user's browser is capable of.

## Description

`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 );
    ?>

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.

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