php variable problem

Adamthenewbie

I want to set a PHP variable to hold the Users Browser. Is this possible? Basically what I am trying now is to use javascript to get the users browser then setting it equal to a php varialble

<?
$browserInfo = "<script type=\"text/javascript\">document.write(navigator.appName)</script>";
?>

Anyway this doesnt work.. Is there anyway I can do this??

Adam

devinemke

look at $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT']

Adamthenewbie

thats sweet. thanks. I just assumed since PHP was a server side language it couldnt tell me anything about the client

Adam

Weedpacket

Originally posted by Adamthenewbie
thats sweet. thanks. I just assumed since PHP was a server side language it couldnt tell me anything about the client

The User Agent string is sent by the client as part of each request it makes to the server - the idea being of course that it then allows client-type-specific content to be generated.

It's not 100% reliable, since you're trusting the client not to lie about what it is. It's probably more like 99.5%, and clients who do lie do so with the expectation that there might be problems.

planetsim

Thats when this statement comes into play

if (isset($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT']))

To make sure the user agent super global exists.