User Agent Class
The User Agent Class provides functions that help identify information about the browser, mobile device, or robot visiting your site.
Using the User Agent Class
Initializing the Class
The User Agent class is always available directly from the current IncomingRequest instance. By default, you will have a request instance in your controller that you can retrieve the User Agent class from:
<?php
$agent = $this->request->getUserAgent();
User Agent Definitions
The user agent name definitions are located in a config file located at: app/Config/UserAgents.php. You may add items to the various user agent arrays if needed.
Example
When the User Agent class is initialized it will attempt to determine whether the user agent browsing your site is a web browser, a mobile device, or a robot. It will also gather the platform information if it is available:
<?php
$agent = $this->request->getUserAgent();
if ($agent->isBrowser()) {
$currentAgent = $agent->getBrowser() . ' ' . $agent->getVersion();
} elseif ($agent->isRobot()) {
$currentAgent = $agent->getRobot();
} elseif ($agent->isMobile()) {
$currentAgent = $agent->getMobile();
} else {
$currentAgent = 'Unidentified User Agent';
}
echo $currentAgent;
echo $agent->getPlatform(); // Platform info (Windows, Linux, Mac, etc.)
Class Reference
- CodeIgniter\\HTTP\\UserAgent
- isBrowser([$key = null])
- Parameters
$key (
string) – Optional browser name
- Returns
true if the user agent is a (specified) browser, false if not
- Return type
bool
Returns true/false (boolean) if the user agent is a known web browser.
<?php if ($agent->isBrowser('Safari')) { echo 'You are using Safari.'; } elseif ($agent->isBrowser()) { echo 'You are using a browser.'; }
Note
The string “Safari” in this example is an array key in the list of browser definitions. You can find this list in app/Config/UserAgents.php if you want to add new browsers or change the strings.
- isMobile([$key = null])
- Parameters
$key (
string) – Optional mobile device name
- Returns
true if the user agent is a (specified) mobile device, false if not
- Return type
bool
Returns true/false (boolean) if the user agent is a known mobile device.
<?php if ($agent->isMobile('iphone')) { echo view('iphone/home'); } elseif ($agent->isMobile()) { echo view('mobile/home'); } else { echo view('web/home'); }
- isRobot([$key = null])
- Parameters
$key (
string) – Optional robot name
- Returns
true if the user agent is a (specified) robot, false if not
- Return type
bool
Returns true/false (boolean) if the user agent is a known robot.
Note
The user agent library only contains the most common robot definitions. It is not a complete list of bots. There are hundreds of them so searching for each one would not be very efficient. If you find that some bots that commonly visit your site are missing from the list you can add them to your app/Config/UserAgents.php file.
- isReferral()
- Returns
true if the user agent is a referral, false if not
- Return type
bool
Returns true/false (boolean) if the user agent was referred from another site.
- getBrowser()
- Returns
Detected browser or an empty string
- Return type
string
Returns a string containing the name of the web browser viewing your site.
- getVersion()
- Returns
Detected browser version or an empty string
- Return type
string
Returns a string containing the version number of the web browser viewing your site.
- getMobile()
- Returns
Detected mobile device brand or an empty string
- Return type
string
Returns a string containing the name of the mobile device viewing your site.
- getRobot()
- Returns
Detected robot name or an empty string
- Return type
string
Returns a string containing the name of the robot viewing your site.
- getPlatform()
- Returns
Detected operating system or an empty string
- Return type
string
Returns a string containing the platform viewing your site (Linux, Windows, OS X, etc.).
- getReferrer()
- Returns
Detected referrer or an empty string
- Return type
string
The referrer, if the user agent was referred from another site. Typically you’ll test for this as follows:
<?php if ($agent->isReferral()) { echo $agent->referrer(); }
- getAgentString()
- Returns
Full user agent string or an empty string
- Return type
string
Returns a string containing the full user agent string. Typically it will be something like this:
Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X; en-US; rv:1.8.0.4) Gecko/20060613 Camino/1.0.2
- parse($string)
- Parameters
$string (
string) – A custom user-agent string
- Return type
void
Parses a custom user-agent string, different from the one reported by the current visitor.