Browser detect and IE

[elizabeth thomas]

Hi,
I am using the following simple code to detect the browser version. When I run the code in IE 6.0, I am getting the browser version as "4". Can anyone explains me what the robelm is??
browser_version= parseFloat(navigator.appVersion);
browser_type = navigator.appName;
if (browser_type == "Microsoft Internet Explorer" && (browser_version >= 4)) {
alert ("You appear to be using Microsoft Internet Explorer: " + browser_version);
}
else if (browser_type == "Netscape" && (browser_version >= 4)) {
alert ("You appear to be using Netscape: " + browser_version);
}

[Bear Bibeault]

Yes, that is what it does. If you take a look at the value of the navigator.userAgent attribute you will see why it does what it does (but that doesn't mean it actually makes sense).
You will note however, that the correct browser version number is embedded in the userAgent string. This is what you should be using to perform browser determination.
You can use regular expression processing to parse the version number out of the userAgent string.
hth,
bear
[ May 14, 2003: Message edited by: Bear Bibeault ]

[elizabeth thomas]

Thank You bear. It worked

[Manish Hatwalne]

Actually, in most cases a better idea is to detect property supported (such as getElementById) by the browser rather than to detect a browser name. Few brosers like Opera can fake a user agent string.
- Manish