Using browscap - UK Web Hosting | Dedicated Server Windows and Linux VPS Forum

**mattx** · #1 (**permalink**) 19-07-2007, 21:58

Hi, I've just set up a new account (Linux shared hosting account)... I'm currently transferring my old website (that I know works... at least, on my old host). However, I can't get my php system to find my browscap.ini...

For example, in my pages I get an error

Code:

Warning: get_browser() [function.get-browser]: 
browscap ini directive not set. in 
/home/mattx/includes/webcounter.inc on line 105

I have tried to set the location in .htaccess, using

Code:

php_value browscap "/home/mattx/includes/browscap.ini"

(Hmm... bad idea to post full paths?)

Anyway, other directives in .htaccess work properly, so I'm not sure there's a problem with visibility...

Does anyone have any obvious suggestions as to what I might be doing wrong?... Or, how to fix this?

Thanks.

>> Edit:

I notice this is also broken on the EUKHost's page

http://webtools.eukhost.com/browser_details.php

**eUKhost.com** · #2 (**permalink**) 19-07-2007, 23:31

Hello Matt,

Solution for this problem is available at http://blog.eukhost.com/2007/05/14/g...owser-details/

One of our system administrator has fixed this error on http://webtools.eukhost.com/browser_details.php

I am not sure how google got this URL indexed as we've not yet linked webtools section anywhere on our website and work is incomplete right now.

**mattx** · #3 (**permalink**) 19-07-2007, 23:33

Ah, I see the issue (after reading php.net): I can't set browscap in .htaccess, by law, I had to set it using a custom php.ini on my old website (host)...

Sorry for that confusion

Now, that begs the question, is it possible to use get_browser() at all on my account??... I guess I'll contact support...

**mattx** · #4 (**permalink**) 19-07-2007, 23:36

You must have typed that while I was typing mine...

Do I actually have an editable php.ini, seeing as tho I'm on a shared host thing... I can't find one anywhere, can I create my own? On my old host I could create one and put it into /home/mattx/etc (or, the equivalent of)...

Sorry about digging up that page....

**AndyD** · #5 (**permalink**) 20-07-2007, 04:00

Hello,

Quote:

mattx :: Do I actually have an editable php.ini, seeing as tho I'm on a shared host thing... I can't find one anywhere, can I create my own? On my old host I could create one and put it into /home/mattx/etc (or, the equivalent of)...

You being having a shared account and thus being a normal user on the server, do not have access to the global php.ini file on the server. But you can go ahead and create a custom php.ini under the public_html folder of your account and put in a line as:
browscap = /home/mattx/includes/browscap.ini
there to enable the browscap feature for your website coz this would override the browscap value set in global php.ini for your user.
Hope this works out for you. Good Luck!!!

**mattx** · #6 (**permalink**) 20-07-2007, 12:56

Have you got experience of this working, for you? Because I just tried it and nothing happened....

**DPS Computing** · #7 (**permalink**) 20-07-2007, 13:42

Maybe support might be able to implement it on your behalf?

**mattx** · #8 (**permalink**) 20-07-2007, 13:47

Yeah, they've done that now...

**DPS Computing** · #9 (**permalink**) 20-07-2007, 13:48

Glad to see you got it sorted then

.

**AndyD** · #10 (**permalink**) 01-08-2007, 04:18

Bravo Support Again!!! But can anybody let others on this Forum know how they went doing this for Matt? So that anybody else facing the same would be able to do it by himself (if it's within his limit at all)

**mattx** · #11 (**permalink**) 01-08-2007, 11:00

You just speak to support and say "My browscap setting doesn't work", and then they update it on your server...

Although I'm not sure how recent the browscap.ini actually is, since it doesn't recognise a lot of the current msn and yahoo robots.

I think I'll just have to use one of the custom get_browser() scripts on php.net ;/

**AndyD** · #12 (**permalink**) 02-08-2007, 01:38

Well Matt, I'm not a PHP guru so couldn't really get what you are planning to do with your browscap utility

Well, I think you should refer http://browsers.garykeith.com/downloads.asp for more help on latest browscap.ini updates

**mattx** · #13 (**permalink**) 02-08-2007, 10:35

Well they set the browscap setting to 'extra/browscap.ini', which isn't in my own path, so I can't modify (and update) the file.

The browscap.ini is just a normal .ini file so you can in principle use php functions to parse one yourself (php.net has some sample scripts for this).

At the moment I'm using it to detect robots in some visitor-counters, and to hide some parts of my website from them.