Getting Started

platform-ts is a synchronous, type-safe utility for user-agent sniffing. You can get it by running:

bash
npm i platform-ts

Usage

This module uses discriminated unions to represent the distinction between common, known browsers, engines, devices, and operating systems. The following example shows the structure of the Browser type:

typescript
export interface UnknownBrowser {
  name: null;
  originalName?: string;
  version?: string;
  known: false;
}

export interface KnownBrowser {
  name: KnownBrowserNames;
  originalName: string;
  version?: string;
  known: true;
}

export type Browser = UnknownBrowser | KnownBrowser;

We can use this type to determine the user's browser with type inference. The following example shows how to use the Browser type to determine the user's browser:

typescript
import { PlatformReader } from "platform-ts";

const platform = new PlatformReader();
const browser = platform.getBrowser();

if (browser.known) {
  // browser name can be autocompleted here
  // one of the `KnownBrowserNames` is available
  console.log(browser.name);
} else {
  // browser name is unknown
  // `name` is null, but `originalName` is available
  // if the user agent string is parsable
  console.log(browser.originalName);
}