While browscap.ini contains information on many browsers, it relies on user updates to keep the database current. The format of the file is fairly self explanatory.

Overload resolution is in general a hard problem given the differences in types between the two languages. The PHP Java extension employs a simple, but fairly effective, metric for determining which overload is the best match.

The module hides most of the complexity of Z39.50 so it should be fairly easy to use. It supports persistent stateless connections very similar to those offered by the various RDB APIs that are available for PHP. This means that sessions are stateless but shared amongst users, thus saving the connect and initialize phase steps in most cases.