inet_pton - convert IPv4 and IPv6 addresses from text to binary form
SYNOPSIS
#include <arpa/inet.h>int inet_pton(int af, const char *src, void *dst);
DESCRIPTION
This function converts the character string
src
into a network address structure in the
af
address family, then
copies
the network address structure to
dst.
The
af
argument must be either
AF_INET
or
AF_INET6.
The following address families are currently supported:
AF_INET
src
points to a character string containing an IPv4 network address in
dotted-decimal format, "ddd.ddd.ddd.ddd", where
ddd
is a decimal number of up to three digits in the range 0 to 255.
The address is converted to a
struct in_addr
and copied to
dst,
which must be
sizeof(struct in_addr)
(4) bytes (32 bits) long.
AF_INET6
src
points to a character string containing an IPv6 network address.
The address is converted to a
struct in6_addr
and copied to
dst,
which must be
sizeof(struct in6_addr)
(16) bytes (128 bits) long.
The allowed formats for IPv6 addresses follow these rules:
1.
The preferred format is
x:x:x:x:x:x:x:x.
This form consists of eight hexadecimal numbers,
each of which expresses a 16-bit value (i.e., each
x
can be up to 4 hex digits).
2.
A series of contiguous zero values in the preferred format
can be abbreviated to
::.
Only one instance of
::
can occur in an address.
For example, the loopback address
0:0:0:0:0:0:0:1
can be abbreviated as
::1.
The wildcard address, consisting of all zeroes, can be written as
::.
3.
An alternate format is useful for expressing IPv4-mapped IPv6 addresses.
This form is written as
x:x:x:x:x:x:d.d.d.d,
where the six leading
xs
are hexadecimal values that define the six most-significant
16-bit pieces of the address (i.e., 96 bits), and the
ds
express a value in dotted-decimal notation that
defines the least significant 32 bits of the address.
An example of such an address is
::FFFF:204.152.189.116.
See RFC 2373 for further details on the representation of IPv6 addresses.
RETURN VALUE
inet_pton()
returns 1 on success (network address was successfully converted).
0 is returned if
src
does not contain a character string representing a valid network
address in the specified address family.
If
af
does not contain a valid address family, -1 is returned and
errno
is set to
EAFNOSUPPORT.
CONFORMING TO
POSIX.1-2001.
NOTES
Unlike
inet_aton(3)
and
inet_addr(3),
inet_pton()
supports IPv6 addresses.
On the other hand,
inet_pton()
only accepts IPv4 addresses in dotted-decimal notation, whereas
inet_aton(3)
and
inet_addr(3)
allow the more general numbers-and-dots notation (hexadecimal
and octal number formats, and formats that don't require all
four bytes to be explicitly written).
For an interface that handles both IPv6 addresses, and IPv4
addresses in numbers-and-dots notation, see
getaddrinfo(3).
BUGS
AF_INET6
does not recognize IPv4 addresses.
An explicit IPv4-mapped IPv6 address must be supplied in
src
instead.
EXAMPLE
The program below demonstrates the use of
inet_pton()
and
inet_ntop(3).
Here are some example runs:
This page is part of release 3.14 of the Linux
man-pages
project.
A description of the project,
and information about reporting bugs,
can be found at
http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.