special_agent

Special Agent

User Agent detection for Ruby. Based on agent_orange but we didn't like the name so we forked it.

About

There are quite a few User Agent parsing libraries already, but none of them make adequate detection of mobile browsers and clients. With such a significant number of requests coming from mobile users a library with the ability to detect what type of device a user is coming from is necessary.

This library for Ruby will allow you to detect whether a user is on a computer, a mobile device, or is a bot (such as Google). It was composed by using techniques gathered from several other libraries/gems in an effort to be consistent and cover as many types of agents as possible.

Installation

gem install special_agent

If you're going to use it with Rails then add the gem to your Gemfile.

Example Usage

Create new user agent parser

ua = SpecialAgent::UserAgent.new(user_agent_string)

Looking at the device

>> device = ua.device
=> "Mobile"
>> device.type
=> "mobile"
>> device.name
=> "Mobile"
>> device.version
=> nil

Check to see if the device is mobile, a desktop/laptop/server computer, or a bot

>> device.is_mobile?
=> true
>> device.is_computer?
=> false
>> device.is_bot?
=> false

Use the proxies to check if the user is on a mobile device

>> ua.is_mobile?
=> true

Looking at the platform

>> platform = ua.device.platform
=> "iPhone"
>> platform.type
=> "iphone"
>> platform.name
=> "iPhone"
>> platform.version
=> "3GS"

Looking at the operating system

>> os = ua.device.os
=> "iPhone OS 4.3"
>> os.type
=> "iphone_os"
>> os.name
=> "iPhone OS"
>> os.version
=> "4.3"

Looking at the web engine

>> engine = ua.device.engine
=> "WebKit 5.3"
>> engine.type
=> "webkit"
>> engine.name
=> "WebKit"
>> engine.version
=> "5.3.1.2321"

Looking at the browser

  >> browser = ua.device.engine.browser
  => "Internet Explorer 10"
  >> browser.type
  => "ie"
  >> browser.name
  => "Internet Explorer"
  >> browser.version
  => "10.0.112"

Quickly get to the browser version

>> SpecialAgent::UserAgent.new(user_agent_string).device.engine.browser.version
=> "10.0.112"

General Class Definition

SpecialAgent::UserAgent device parse is_computer? # proxy is_mobile? # proxy is_bot? # proxy to_s

SpecialAgent::Device parse type name version is_computer?(name=nil) # is_mobile?(name=nil) # accepts a :symbol or "String" is_bot?(name=nil) # to_s

SpecialAgent::Engine parse type name version to_s

SpecialAgent::Version parse major minor patch_level build_number to_s

Credit

As noted above, special_agent is just a fork of Kevin Elliot's agent_orange gem. He deserves all the credit for writing them gem. We just didn't want to perpetuate the use of such a culturally sensitive name.

License

(The MIT License)

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the 'Software'), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED 'AS IS', WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.