Download the PHP package 1978io/scry without Composer
On this page you can find all versions of the php package 1978io/scry. It is possible to download/install these versions without Composer. Possible dependencies are resolved automatically.
Package scry
Short Description Zero-dependency, single-file PHP library that turns a User-Agent (plus Client Hints) into coarse-but-reliable facts: real browser or not, browser family, OS and device class.
License MIT
Homepage https://github.com/1978io/scry
FAQ
Example:
In general, it is recommended to use always a project to download your libraries. In an application normally there is more than one library needed.
- Some hosting areas are not accessible by a terminal or SSH. Then it is not possible to use Composer.
- To use Composer is sometimes complicated. Especially for beginners.
- Composer needs much resources. Sometimes they are not available on a simple webspace.
- If you are using private repositories you don't need to share your credentials. You can set up everything on our site and then you provide a simple download link to your team member.
- Simplify your Composer build process. Use our own command line tool to download the vendor folder as binary. This makes your build process faster and you don't need to expose your credentials for private repositories.
Informations about the package scry
Scry
Coarse-but-reliable User-Agent detection for PHP. One file, zero dependencies.
Scry answers four questions about a request and refuses to pretend it can answer more:
- Is this a real browser? — the anomaly flag
- Which browser family? — Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge, …
- Which OS? — Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, Linux, …
- Desktop, tablet or mobile?
That is the whole library. No version numbers, no device make and model, no crawler catalogue. Those things are useful, but keeping them accurate is a permanent maintenance job — which is exactly why the good libraries that do it are big. If you need that precision, use matomo/device-detector; it is excellent and Scry is not trying to replace it.
Scry is for the common case: you want to log something readable, split desktop from
mobile, or notice that a "visitor" is actually curl. It is one file you can read in a
sitting.
Install
Composer:
Or just drop the file in. src/Scry.php is the entire library — copy it into your
project and require it. No autoloader, no vendor directory, no build step.
Requires PHP 8.0+.
Usage
Detect an arbitrary string — a stored UA from your logs, say:
The full surface
One static entry point. The returned object is immutable, and detect() never
throws — an empty or nonsensical User-Agent comes back as unknown / Other with
confidence() of 'low', never as a guess.
Example: a request log line
What it detects, and what it does not
It does:
- separate real browsers from
curl,wget,python-requests,Go-http-client,okhttp, Postman, headless Chrome, PhantomJS and generic crawlers - name the browser family and OS in a form you would actually show a human
- classify desktop / tablet / mobile
- prefer Client Hints (
Sec-CH-UA,Sec-CH-UA-Platform,Sec-CH-UA-Mobile) over the UA string when the browser sends them, and ignore the GREASE entries browsers inject into the brand list to stop servers hard-coding it
It does not:
- report versions (browser, OS or engine)
- report device make or model, screen size, or vendor
- identify which crawler is calling — a crawler is reported as a crawler
- maintain a bot catalogue, so it will not catch every obscure bot on earth
The last point is deliberate. A UA-based bot list is always out of date and anything
determined to hide will just send a Chrome UA. Treat isBrowser() as a strong,
cheap signal — not a security control.
Honesty notes
The friendly labels are best effort. The anomaly flag is the durable part. UA
strings are self-reported and frozen by vendors; browser() and os() are convenience,
and raw() is always there so you can re-parse later with something else. Nothing is
thrown away.
The iPad trap. Since iPadOS 13, Safari on an iPad requests desktop sites by default
and sends a User-Agent byte-identical to Safari on a Mac. Scry reports it as
macOS / desktop, because that is genuinely all the string says. It does not
guess "tablet" — a guess that would also mislabel every real Mac. iPads that send the
mobile-mode UA (containing iPad) are correctly reported as iPadOS / tablet. If you
truly need to tell them apart, that decision belongs on the client side (touch points,
screen size) and should be treated as a separate signal.
confidence() describes the classification, not the visitor. 'high' means
something matched positively; 'low' means Scry fell back to Other / unknown
rather than invent an answer.
How it works
Everything lives in ordered data tables at the top of src/Scry.php —
BROWSERS, OS, DEVICES, BOTS_AND_TOOLS — each row a [label, pattern] pair.
Detection walks the tables and the first match wins, so the tables run specific to
general. The ordering carries real meaning and is commented in place: Edge before Chrome
(Edge's UA contains Chrome/), Chrome before Safari (Chrome's UA ends in Safari/),
tablets before mobile (an Android tablet is Android without the Mobile token).
Adding a browser is a one-line addition to a table, in the right place.
Tests
The test suite is plain PHP with no dev dependencies:
The corpus in tests/run.php is the living spec — real User-Agent
strings with the exact result expected for each, including the iPad trap, empty and
garbage input, bots and tools, and Client-Hints cases. If you disagree with a result,
open an issue against the corpus; that is the conversation worth having.
Contributing
Bug reports and additional UA corpus cases are very welcome. Pull requests that add versions, device models or a bot catalogue will be politely declined — that is not a gap in Scry, it is the design.
License
MIT — see LICENSE. Copyright © 2026 James Robinson / 1978.io.
A 1978.io project.
