Identifying Browser & Platform

PHP creates some useful environment variables that can be seen in the phpinfo.php page that was used to setup the PHP environment.


One of the environemnt variables set by PHP is HTTP_USER_AGENT which identifies the user's browser and operating system.

PHP provides a function getenv() to access the value of all the environment variables. The information contained in the HTTP_USER_AGENT environment variable can be used to create dynamic content appropriate to the borwser.

Following example demonstrates how you can identify a client borwser and operating system.


<html>
<body>
<?php

   $viewer = getenv( "HTTP_USER_AGENT" );

   $browser = "An unidentified browser";
   if( preg_match( "/MSIE/i", "$viewer" ) )
   {
      $browser = "Internet Explorer";
   }
   else if(  preg_match( "/Netscape/i", "$viewer" ) )
   {
      $browser = "Netscape";
   }
   else if(  preg_match( "/Mozilla/i", "$viewer" ) )
   {
      $browser = "Mozilla";
   }
   $platform = "An unidentified OS!";
   if( preg_match( "/Windows/i", "$viewer" ) )
   {
      $platform = "Windows!";
   }
   else if ( preg_match( "/Linux/i", "$viewer" ) )
   {
      $platform = "Linux!";
   }
   echo("You are using $browser on $platform");
?>
</body>
</html>

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