browserCaps Element (ASP.NET Settings Schema)

Specifies the settings of supported browsers and the capabilities of the supported browsers. The browserCaps element can be updated as required to specify new browsers and capabilities.

<browserCaps>
   <result />
   <use />
   [browser capability property assignments]
   <filter>...</filter>
</browserCaps>

Attributes and Elements

The following sections describe attributes, child elements, and parent elements.

Attributes

Child Elements

Parent Elements

Remarks

The browserCaps element specifies the settings of supported browsers and the capabilities for the supported browsers. The browserCaps element can be updated as required to specify new browsers and capabilities.

For a list of valid browser properties, see HttpBrowserCapabilities.

Lines of the form capsVariableName=regular expression are assignments. Use the syntax %{capsVariableName} or ${captureGroupName} in match attributes and on the right side of assignments.

For more information about how to use regular expressions, see .NET Framework Regular Expressions. For the full browserCaps section, with a complete example of this syntax, see the Machine.config file that is installed with the .NET Framework.

The name/value pairs that are captured with capsVariableName can be accessed through the Item property of the HttpBrowserCapabilities object that is inherited from the HttpCapabilitiesBase class. The Item property is the default indexer property in C#.

Default Configuration

In the .NET Framework version 2.0, the following limited default browserCaps element is configured in the root Web.config file because it is deprecated in favor of using browser definition files to specify supported browsers and capabilities. For more information, see Browser Definition File Schema (browsers Element).

<browserCaps userAgentCacheKeyLength="64">
   <result 
      type="System.Web.Mobile.MobileCapabilities, System.Web.Mobile, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a" 
   />
</browserCaps>

In the .NET Framework versions 1.0 and 1.1, the default browserCaps element that is configured in the machine.config file is too large to list here. For updates to the browser data go to http://www.cyscape.com/browsercaps. Periodic device updates replace this browser capabilities section.

Example

The following code example demonstrates how to parse the User-Agent HTTP header for any version of Microsoft Internet Explorer, as long as the format of the User-Agent string remains approximately unchanged.

The example uses .NET Framework Regular Expressions and the ability of regular expressions to capture subexpressions in order to move version numbers directly from the User-Agent string to the HttpBrowserCapabilities object.

The file specifies name/value pairs in the form of assignment statements, which is similar to Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) browscap.ini files. For example, the line "browser=IE" sets the value of the browser field to the string "IE".

<configuration>
   <browserCaps>
      <result type="System.Web.HttpBrowserCapabilities, System.Web"/>
      <use var="HTTP_USER_AGENT"/>
      browser=Unknown
      version=0.0
      majorversion=0
      minorversion=0
      frames=false
      tables=false
      cookies=false
      backgroundsounds=false
      <filter>
    <case match="^Mozilla[^(]*\(compatible; MSIE 
       (?'ver'(?'major'\d+)(?'minor'\.\d+)(?'letters'\w*))
       (?'extra'.*)">
       browser=IE
       version=${ver}
       majorver=${major}
       minorver=${minor}
       <case match="^2\." with="%{version}">
          tables=true
          cookies=true
          backgroundsounds=true
          <case match="2\.5b" with="%{version}">
        beta=true
          </case>
       </case>
    </case>
      </filter>
   </browsercaps>
</configuration>

Element Information

See Also

Tasks

How to: Detect Browser Types in ASP.NET Web Pages
How to: Configure Specific Directories Using Location Settings
How to: Lock ASP.NET Configuration Settings

Reference

system.web Element (ASP.NET Settings Schema)
configuration Element (General Settings Schema)
filter Element for browserCaps (ASP.NET Settings Schema)
result Element for browserCaps (ASP.NET Settings Schema)
use Element for browserCaps (ASP.NET Settings Schema)
Browser Definition File Schema (browsers Element)
System.Configuration
System.Web.Configuration
HttpCapabilitiesSectionHandler
Browsers

Concepts

ASP.NET Web Server Controls and Browser Capabilities
ASP.NET Configuration File Hierarchy and Inheritance
Securing ASP.NET Configuration
ASP.NET Configuration Scenarios

Other Resources

General Configuration Settings (ASP.NET)
ASP.NET Configuration Settings
Configuring ASP.NET Applications
ASP.NET Configuration API