Comments on: Detect Bots By Parsing The User Agent With PHP http://codytaylor.org/2009/06/detect-bots-by-parsing-the-user-agent-with-php.html From Cody Taylor. Thu, 13 Oct 2011 06:41:44 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: anon http://codytaylor.org/2009/06/detect-bots-by-parsing-the-user-agent-with-php.html/comment-page-1#comment-4204 anon Wed, 19 Aug 2009 23:19:08 +0000 http://codytaylor.org/?p=14119#comment-4204 Jurian is right in that you ought to return true/false instead of 1/0. Interesting idea, but maintaining a list of bots is painful and annoying, hence why Jurian recommends browscap. However, please examine these test results before using browscap for any large project. In order for it to be a viable solution -- even with caching -- it would have to be several orders of magnitude faster. Dual core Xeon E3110 3.16GHz, 4GB RAM, Apache/2.2.11 (Unix) and PHP 5.2.9 - Load Avg: 0.20, 0.20, 0.13. Using PHP's get_browser() and php_browscap.ini: 0.0370211601257 sec Using Browscap.php class and php_browscap.ini: 0.0388770103455 sec Using PHP's get_browser() and lite_php_browscap.ini: 0.0258259773254 sec Using Browscap.php class and lite_php_browscap.ini: 0.0213708877563 sec Jurian is right in that you ought to return true/false instead of 1/0.

Interesting idea, but maintaining a list of bots is painful and annoying, hence why Jurian recommends browscap.

However, please examine these test results before using browscap for any large project. In order for it to be a viable solution — even with caching — it would have to be several orders of magnitude faster.

Dual core Xeon E3110 3.16GHz, 4GB RAM, Apache/2.2.11 (Unix) and PHP 5.2.9 – Load Avg: 0.20, 0.20, 0.13.

Using PHP’s get_browser() and php_browscap.ini: 0.0370211601257 sec

Using Browscap.php class and php_browscap.ini: 0.0388770103455 sec

Using PHP’s get_browser() and lite_php_browscap.ini: 0.0258259773254 sec

Using Browscap.php class and lite_php_browscap.ini: 0.0213708877563 sec

]]> By: Jurian Sluiman http://codytaylor.org/2009/06/detect-bots-by-parsing-the-user-agent-with-php.html/comment-page-1#comment-3029 Jurian Sluiman Mon, 15 Jun 2009 20:46:09 +0000 http://codytaylor.org/?p=14119#comment-3029 First one point about your coding style: if you're using a function where you expect a boolean result, please return booleans. Though php is waked typed, its much better to have your controller functions returning the right type. When you're inserting the data inside your database, you can always cast it back to anything you want. The second thing: if you want to determine the visitor based on the user agent, it's smart to use browscap (http://code.google.com/p/phpbrowscap/). That's a very reliable solution for user agent detection (and even will you help for further statistics!). First one point about your coding style: if you’re using a function where you expect a boolean result, please return booleans. Though php is waked typed, its much better to have your controller functions returning the right type. When you’re inserting the data inside your database, you can always cast it back to anything you want.

The second thing: if you want to determine the visitor based on the user agent, it’s smart to use browscap (http://code.google.com/p/phpbrowscap/). That’s a very reliable solution for user agent detection (and even will you help for further statistics!).

]]> By: abcphp.com http://codytaylor.org/2009/06/detect-bots-by-parsing-the-user-agent-with-php.html/comment-page-1#comment-3016 abcphp.com Mon, 15 Jun 2009 08:39:53 +0000 http://codytaylor.org/?p=14119#comment-3016 <strong>Detect Bots By Parsing The User Agent With PHP...</strong> Because I’ve been starting to keep a closer eye on my traffic I’ve been logging everything to my databases. When writing reports for this information I noticed that there was huge amounts of traffic from bots. Yahoo, Google, MSN and many others have be... Detect Bots By Parsing The User Agent With PHP…

Because I’ve been starting to keep a closer eye on my traffic I’ve been logging everything to my databases. When writing reports for this information I noticed that there was huge amounts of traffic from bots. Yahoo, Google, MSN and many others have be…

]]> By: Cody Taylor http://codytaylor.org/2009/06/detect-bots-by-parsing-the-user-agent-with-php.html/comment-page-1#comment-3009 Cody Taylor Sun, 14 Jun 2009 21:20:06 +0000 http://codytaylor.org/?p=14119#comment-3009 I insert at the very end of the page after I flush everything out so there will be no delay of content even if the db is bogged down. And if I was give it to someone else who is using iis I would have to recode the entire thing. Also when doing reporting on large sets of data I don't want to have to parse huge log files for every report. I insert at the very end of the page after I flush everything out so there will be no delay of content even if the db is bogged down. And if I was give it to someone else who is using iis I would have to recode the entire thing. Also when doing reporting on large sets of data I don’t want to have to parse huge log files for every report.

]]> By: Old Man http://codytaylor.org/2009/06/detect-bots-by-parsing-the-user-agent-with-php.html/comment-page-1#comment-3008 Old Man Sun, 14 Jun 2009 21:11:40 +0000 http://codytaylor.org/?p=14119#comment-3008 It seems unecessary to log things in your database. First of all it will probably increase the time for your page to generate. And it also seems a bit uncessary when the web server logs everything anyway? Why don't you just parse the web servers logs? If you need more information than is available, you can add information to the apache logs directly: http://ca.php.net/manual/en/function.apache-note.php It seems unecessary to log things in your database. First of all it will probably increase the time for your page to generate. And it also seems a bit uncessary when the web server logs everything anyway?

Why don’t you just parse the web servers logs?

If you need more information than is available, you can add information to the apache logs directly:
http://ca.php.net/manual/en/function.apache-note.php

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