ID: 27291
Comment by: php_bug_27291 at garykeith dot com
Reported By: php-bug-NOSPAM-2004 at ryandesign dot com
Status: Open
Bug Type: *General Issues
Operating System: *
PHP Version: 4CVS, 5CVS (2004-02-20)
New Comment:
In looking at browscap.ini with all Gecko-based browsers now using
Gecko/* instead of Gecko/???????? I can find no reason why Netscape 7.x
should have a problem with my definitions. I mean, what's wrong with
the following browscap.ini definition?
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; ?; Windows NT 5.2; *) Gecko/* Netscape7/7.2*
By any reasonable standard it should recognize this user agent as
Netscape 7.2. In my tests using browscap.dll that's exactly what it
did.
Have I found yet another bug? Or did I completely miss what you were
trying to tell me?
Thanks for the tip about Camino. I don't see it very often in my logs.
I've added the plus version to my database but haven't published it
yet.
I will bundle up all the files you requested and make them available on
one of my servers. I'll e-mail you privately once that's done as I do
not want to publicize the URL, LOL.
Previous Comments:
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[2004-02-23 17:25:44] php-bug-NOSPAM-2004 at ryandesign dot com
Yes, I'm sorry, I meant to mention that changing to
match Gecko/* instead of Gecko/???????? would seem to
adversely affect Netscape 7.x, whose UA string starts
the same way, but ends, after the Gecko/xxx part, with
Netscape/xxx.
Other things you should look out for in your file: I
think you may be missing a pattern for the Camino
browser version 0.7+. That's what you get if you use the
latest nightly builds, which is effortlessly achieved by
using the program CaminoKnight, and since 0.7 proper is
so ancient now, most Camino users probably are running
the 0.7+ builds. The UA string ends with the + sign but
seems otherwise the same to what you have in the 2/15/04
file.
Confirmed that the new browscap.ini from 2/15/04 causes
a parse error at Apache startup. Filed http://
bugs.php.net/27372
Sorry about my shorthand... by .tgz I just meant a
compressed file. A Zip file would be fine too. If you
could bundle up your huge UA list, and possibly also
your script to feed these to browscap.dll, and put them
on a web or ftp server like Jay did or just email them
to me, that'd be great.
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[2004-02-23 16:46:16] php_bug_27291 at garykeith dot com
Sorry I forgot to address your proposal.
You do need IIS to use browscap.dll. The problem is you cannot pass a
user agent to it directly like you can with PHP. I have a script (in
ASP/VBScript obviously, but probably easily converted to PHP) that lets
you pass a specific user agent to browscap.dll and get the resulting
browser in return.
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[2004-02-23 16:39:22] php_bug_27291 at garykeith dot com
Tell me what a .tgz file is and if I can do it I will.
I'm working two new bugs that I hope someone will post bug reports
about.
The first deals with the exclamation point that's part of the new
Yahoo! Slurp crawler. I'm not sure what PHP is doing since I don't
speak PHP but I'm told it's throwing a parsing error.
I've also had some complaints from people saying user agents aren't
being recognized since I switched from using Gecko/???????? to Gecko/*
as we discussed earlier.
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[2004-02-23 12:58:19] php-bug-NOSPAM-2004 at ryandesign dot com
Sounds like what we need is a script that takes the user
agents logged by a popular web site, runs them through
browscap.dll and PHP's get_browser(), compares the
results, and informs a PHP programmer about any
differences, so that get_browser() can be kept in line.
I hate to volunteer for such a task, as I'm not a member
of the PHP team, but perhaps, once my patch or one like
it is applied, I could try it out for awhile to see what
quantity of diffs is generated.
I'm not sure, however, how I would use browscap.dll.
What kind of server would need to be used, and what
programming language? I have a feeling you're going to
say Microsoft IIS and Visual Basic or ASP or some such,
none of which I've ever worked with. (I wouldn't know
where to begin.) But if a system could be developed
whereby one popular web server gathers a day's UA's, and
then passes it off to both a script using browscap.dll
and a second one using PHP's get_browser(), and then
takes the results, compares them, and saves out only the
differences, and then emails or FTPs a .tgz to me or
someone, that might be a place to start. I'd be happy to
help with such a script, tho like I said I wouldn't know
how to tackle the browscap.dll part.
I looked through all the diffs between the PHP 4.3.4
get_browser() matching and the results after applying my
patch on Jay's user agent file, and I'm encouraged by
the results. I think they're more accurate. I think it
should improve the situation greatly. Gary, if you'd
like to send your huge 20,000-entry user agent list in a
.tgz I could do some more comparisons and see how the
patch holds up.
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[2004-02-23 12:01:41] php_bug_27291 at garykeith dot com
Jay, whom can I contact at PHP to let them know I no longer want to be
the official source of browscap.ini for PHP? In the past two days I've
had two bug reports, both of which only happen in PHP. When
browscap.dll is doing the parsing it works fine.
I'm fed up with PHP. I waste more of my time dealing with bugs in PHP
than any other aspect of my project and it's just not worth it to me
anymore.
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