ua-extract 1.3.3

Python3 port of matomo's Device Detector

UA-Extract

A Python user-agent parser and device detector powered by Matomo’s regex database — accurate, updatable, and production-ready.

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Overview

UA-Extract is a fast and precise user-agent parser written in Python, built on top of the continuously maintained regex and fixture database from the Matomo Device Detector project.

It detects:

• Browsers and applications
• Operating systems and versions
• Devices (desktop, smartphone, tablet, TV, console, car, camera, etc.)
• Brands and models
• Bots and crawlers
• Secondary clients embedded in mobile user agents

UA-Extract is optimized for performance using in-memory parsing and caching, and is designed for long-running production services.

This project is a Python port of the Universal Device Detection library, adapted to Python while maintaining compatibility with Matomo’s original YAML regex and fixture files.

Source code: https://github.com/pranavagrawal321/UA-Extract

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Disclaimer

This is not a line-by-line port of the original PHP implementation. The parsing logic is Pythonic, but the regex and fixture data are identical, ensuring compatibility with upstream updates.

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Links

• 🔗 PyPI: https://pypi.org/project/ua-extract/
• 🔗 GitHub: https://github.com/pranavagrawal321/UA-Extract

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Installation

Stable Release (PyPI)

pip install ua_extract

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Nightly / Development Version

🔄 Regex Update Frequency: Matomo’s upstream regexes and fixtures are generally updated daily whenever new changes are available. The nightly / development version of UA-Extract tracks these updates closely, making it the best choice if you want the freshest device and client detection.

If you want the latest regex updates and any unreleased fixes or minor improvements, you can install UA-Extract directly from the GitHub repository.

This version may include:

• newer device and client regexes
• updated fixture files
• small internal changes not yet published to PyPI

⚠️ The nightly version is recommended for testing, experimentation, or environments that require the freshest device detection. For strict stability guarantees, prefer the PyPI release.

Install from GitHub

pip install git+https://github.com/pranavagrawal321/UA-Extract.git

Upgrade an existing GitHub install

pip install --upgrade git+https://github.com/pranavagrawal321/UA-Extract.git

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CLI Usage

Install Shell Completion

ua_extract --install-completion

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Update Regex & Fixture Files

Regex and fixture files should be updated periodically to recognize newly released devices and clients.

ua_extract update_regexes

By default, this updates files using Git sparse checkout from the Matomo repository.

CLI Options

Option	Description
--path	Destination directory for regex files
--repo	Git repository URL
--branch	Git branch (Git method only)
--method	Update method: git or api

--no-progress exists for backward compatibility but has no effect and will be removed.

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Programmatic Updates

Regex updates can also be triggered programmatically using the Regexes class.

Git Method (recommended)

Uses:

• shallow clone
• sparse checkout
• atomic backup and rollback on failure

from ua_extract import Regexes

Regexes().update_regexes()

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GitHub API Method

Uses:

• asynchronous downloads (aiohttp)
• concurrency limiting
• exponential retry logic
• GitHub rate-limit detection

from ua_extract import Regexes

Regexes(github_token="your_token").update_regexes(method="api")

Notes:

• GitHub API limits: 60 requests/hour unauthenticated, 5000/hour authenticated
• Token does not require special scopes (public repository access only)
• API method always pulls from the master branch

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Dry Run

Regexes().update_regexes(method="api", dry_run=True)

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Update Safety Guarantees

UA-Extract ensures update safety by:

• creating backups of all destination directories
• restoring the previous state automatically on failure
• never leaving partially updated files behind

This makes it safe to run updates in CI or production environments.

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Parsing User Agents

CLI Parsing

You can parse a user-agent directly from the command line using the parse command. The CLI outputs a JSON object containing all detected fields.

ua_extract parse \
  --ua "Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 12_1_4 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/605.1.15 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/16D57 EtsyInc/5.22" \
  --headers '{"Accept":"*/*","X-Requested-With":"com.example.app"}'

Sample CLI JSON Output

{
  "is_bot": false,
  "os_name": "iOS",
  "os_version": "12.1.4",
  "engine": {
    "default": "WebKit"
  },
  "device_brand": "Apple",
  "device_model": "iPhone",
  "device_type": "smartphone",
  "secondary_client_name": "EtsyInc",
  "secondary_client_type": "generic",
  "secondary_client_version": "5.22",
  "bot_name": null,
  "client_name": "Mobile Safari",
  "client_type": "browser",
  "client_application_id": null,
  "is_television": false,
  "uses_mobile_browser": true,
  "is_mobile": true,
  "is_desktop": false,
  "is_feature_phone": false,
  "preferred_client_name": "Mobile Safari",
  "preferred_client_version": "605.1.15",
  "preferred_client_type": "browser"
}

Notes:

• --headers must be a valid JSON object
• headers are optional; omit --headers if not needed
• the output JSON mirrors the fields shown in the Python API example below

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Field Reference

The following table describes every field returned by the CLI and Python API.

Field	Type	Description
is_bot	bool	Whether the user agent is identified as a bot
bot_name	str | null	Name of the bot, if detected
os_name	str | null	Operating system name
os_version	str | null	Operating system version
engine	dict | str | null	Rendering engine information
device_brand	str | null	Device manufacturer
device_model	str | null	Device model
device_type	str | null	Device category (smartphone, tablet, TV, etc.)
client_name	str | null	Primary client (browser or app) name
client_type	str | null	Client type (browser, app, library, etc.)
client_version	str | null	Client version
client_application_id	str | null	Application identifier, if available
secondary_client_name	str | null	Embedded or wrapper client name
secondary_client_type	str | null	Embedded client type
secondary_client_version	str | null	Embedded client version
is_mobile	bool | null	Whether the device is mobile
is_desktop	bool | null	Whether the device is desktop
is_television	bool | null	Whether the device is a TV
uses_mobile_browser	bool | null	Whether a mobile browser is used
is_feature_phone	bool | null	Whether the device is a feature phone
preferred_client_name	str | null	Best client choice when multiple clients exist
preferred_client_version	str | null	Preferred client version
preferred_client_type	str | null	Preferred client type

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Python API

Full Device Detection

from ua_extract import DeviceDetector

ua = "Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 12_1_4 like Mac OS X)..."

headers = {
    "User-Agent": ua,
    "Accept": "*/*",
    "X-Requested-With": "com.example.app",
}

device = DeviceDetector(ua, headers=headers).parse()

# Bot & classification
device.is_bot()
device.bot_name()

# Operating system
device.os_name()
device.os_version()

# Rendering engine
device.engine()

# Device information
device.device_brand()
device.device_model()
device.device_type()

# Client (primary)
device.client_name()
device.client_type()
device.client_version()
device.client_application_id()

# Secondary client
device.secondary_client_name()
device.secondary_client_type()
device.secondary_client_version()

# Device characteristics
device.is_television()
device.uses_mobile_browser()
device.is_mobile()
device.is_desktop()
device.is_feature_phone()

# Preferred client
device.preferred_client_name()
device.preferred_client_version()
device.preferred_client_type()

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High-Performance Software Detection

Skips hardware detection for faster parsing:

from ua_extract import SoftwareDetector

device = SoftwareDetector(ua).parse()

device.client_name()
device.client_version()
device.os_name()

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Testing

python -m unittest

Run a single test module:

python -m ua_extract.tests.parser.test_bot

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Contributing

Contributions and bug reports are welcome: https://github.com/pranavagrawal321/UA-Extract

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License

MIT License — compatible with the original Device Detector project.