get_browser()
get_browser() — Tells what the user's browser is capable of.
Built-in function of PHP 8.5. The manual lists it as available in PHP 4, PHP 5, PHP 7, PHP 8. This page is the reference card: signature, parameters and return value, plus the changelog and the example the manual provides.
What it does
Attempts to determine the capabilities of the user's browser, by looking up the browser's information in the browscap.ini file.
Signature
get_browser(?string $user_agent = null, bool $return_array = false): object|array|false
Parameters
| Parameter | Type | What it takes |
|---|---|---|
| $user_agent | ?string | The User Agent to be analyzed. By default, the value of HTTP User-Agent header is used; however, you can alter this (i.e., look up another browser's info) by passing this parameter. |
| $return_array | bool | If set to true, this function will return an array instead of an object. |
Return value
The information is returned in an object or an array 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. The cookies value simply means that the browser itself is capable of accepting cookies and does not mean the user has enabled the browser to accept cookies or not. The only way to test if cookies are accepted is to set one with setcookie(), reload, and check for the value. Returns false when no information can be retrieved, such as when the browscap configuration setting in php.ini has not been set.
Example
A runnable snippet:
echo $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'] . "\n\n"; $browser = get_browser(null, true); print_r($browser);
Output:
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040803 Firefox/0.9.3 Array ( [browser_name_regex] => ^mozilla/5\.0 (windows; .; windows nt 5\.1; .*rv:.*) gecko/.* firefox/0\.9.*$ [browser_name_pattern] => Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; ?; Windows NT 5.1; *rv:*) Gecko/* Firefox/0.9* [parent] => Firefox 0.9 [platform] => WinXP [browser] => Firefox [version] => 0.9 [majorver] => 0 [minorver] => 9 [cssversion] => 2 [frames] => 1 [iframes] => 1 [tables] => 1 [cookies] => 1 [backgroundsounds] => [vbscript] => [javascript] => 1 [javaapplets] => 1 [activexcontrols] => [cdf] => [aol] => [beta] => 1 [win16] => [crawler] => [stripper] => [wap] => [netclr] => )
All PHP 8.5 built-in functions
Reference card built from the PHP manual page get_browser() (PHP documentation, CC BY 3.0). The page is generated from the manual, so the wording of the parameter and return value text follows php.net.