NAME

       Parse::HTTP::UserAgent - Parser for the User Agent string

VERSION

       version 0.42

SYNOPSIS

          use Parse::HTTP::UserAgent;
          my $ua = Parse::HTTP::UserAgent->new( $str );
          die "Unable to parse!" if $ua->unknown;
          print $ua->name;
          print $ua->version;
          print $ua->os;
          # or just dump for debugging:
          print $ua->dumper;

DESCRIPTION

       Quoting <http://www.webaim.org/blog/user-agent-string-history/>:

          " ... and then Google built Chrome, and Chrome used Webkit, and it was like
          Safari, and wanted pages built for Safari, and so pretended to be Safari.
          And thus Chrome used WebKit, and pretended to be Safari, and WebKit pretended
          to be KHTML, and KHTML pretended to be Gecko, and all browsers pretended to
          be Mozilla, (...) , and the user agent string was a complete mess, and near
          useless, and everyone pretended to be everyone else, and confusion
          abounded."

       User agent strings are a complete mess since there is no standard format for them. They
       can be in various formats and can include more or less information depending on the
       vendor's (or the user's) choice. Also, it is not dependable since it is some arbitrary
       identification string. Any user agent can fake another. So, why deal with such a useless
       mess? You may want to see the choice of your visitors and can get some reliable data (even
       if some are fake) and generate some nice charts out of them or just want to send an
       "HttpOnly" cookie if the user agent seems to support it (and send a normal one if this is
       not the case). However, browser sniffing for client-side coding is considered a bad habit.

       This module implements a rules-based parser and tries to identify MSIE, FireFox, Opera,
       Safari & Chrome first. It then tries to identify Mozilla, Netscape, Robots and the rest
       will be tried with a generic parser. There is also a structure dumper, useful for
       debugging.

METHODS

   new STRING [, OPTIONS ]
       Constructor. Takes the user agent string as the first parameter and returns an object
       based on the parsed structure.

       The optional "OPTIONS" parameter (must be a hashref) can be used to pass several
       parameters:

       •   "extended": controls if the extended probe will be used or not. Default is true. Set
           this to false to disable:

              $ua = Parse::HTTP::UserAgent->new( $str, { extended => 0 } );

           Can be used to speed up the parser by disabling detection of non-major browsers,
           robots and most mobile agents.

   trim STRING
       Trims the string.

   as_hash
       Returns a hash representation of the parsed structure.

   dumper
       See Parse::HTTP::UserAgent::Base::Dumper.

   accessors
       See Parse::HTTP::UserAgent::Base::Accessors for the available accessors you can use on the
       parsed object.

OVERLOADED INTERFACE

       The object returned, overloads stringification ("name") and numification ("version")
       operators. So that you can write this:

           print 42 if $ua eq 'Opera' && $ua >= 9;

       instead of this

           print 42 if $ua->name eq 'Opera' && $ua->version >= 9;

ERROR HANDLING

       •   If you pass a false value to the constructor, it'll croak.

       •   If you pass a non-hashref option to the constructor, it'll croak.

       •   If you pass a wrong parameter to the dumper, it'll croak.

SEE ALSO

   Similar Functionality
       •   HTML::ParseBrowser

       •   HTTP::BrowserDetect

       •   HTTP::DetectUserAgent

       •   HTTP::MobileAgent

       •   Mobile::UserAgent

   Resources
       •   <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_agent>

       •   <http://www.zytrax.com/tech/web/browser_ids.htm>

       •   <http://www.zytrax.com/tech/web/mobile_ids.html>

       •   <http://www.webaim.org/blog/user-agent-string-history/>

       •   <https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Gecko_user_agent_string_reference>

       •   <http://www.useragentstring.com>

   Module Reviews
       •   CPAN modules for parsing User-Agent strings by Neil Bowers:
           <http://blogs.perl.org/users/neilb/2011/10/cpan-modules-for-parsing-user-agent-strings.html>
           (23 October 2011).

       •   Parse::HTTP::UserAgent: yet another user agent string parser by Burak Gursoy:
           <http://use.perl.org/~Burak/journal/39577> (4 September 2009).

AUTHOR

       Burak Gursoy <burak@cpan.org>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

       This software is copyright (c) 2009 by Burak Gursoy.

       This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as
       the Perl 5 programming language system itself.