inet6 man page on HP-UX

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inet6(3N)							     inet6(3N)

NAME
       inet_pton(),  inet_ntop()  - Internet address manipulation routines for
       IP Version 4 and later

SYNOPSIS
DESCRIPTION
       The functions and are new with IP Version 6 (IPv6) and work  with  both
       IP  Version  4 (IPv4) and IPv6 addresses. The letters "p" and "n" stand
       for and The presentation format for an address is often an ASCII string
       and  the	 numeric  format  is  the binary value that goes into a socket
       address structure.

       The ASCII string is either the IPv4 address in dot notation or an  IPv6
       address in colon notation. An example of an ASCII string is or

       The  binary  value  is the hex representation of the IPv4/IPv6 address.
       This binary value resides in the structure for IPv4 address and in  the
       structure  for  IPv6  address.  (Refer to the inet(3N) manpage for more
       details.)

       The functions and are opposite of each other. The function converts  an
       ASCII  address  string  to  binary address, and the function converts a
       binary address into ASCII address string. Also, these are equivalent to
       and respectively.

   The inet_pton() Function
       The function converts an address in its standard text presentation form
       into its numeric binary form.

       The af argument specifies the family of the address. Currently, the and
       address families are supported.

       The  src	 argument  points to the IPv6/IPv4 address string being passed
       in.

       The argument points to a	 buffer	 in  which  the	 function  stores  the
       numeric address. The address is returned in network byte order.

       returns	if  the	 conversion succeeds, if the input is not a valid IPv4
       dotted-decimal string or a valid IPv6 address string, or with errno set
       to if the af argument is unknown.

       The  calling application must ensure that the buffer referred to by dst
       is large enough to hold the numeric address (e.g., 4 bytes  for	or  16
       bytes for

       If  the	af  argument  is the function accepts a string in the standard
       IPv4 dotted-decimal form:

	  ddd.ddd.ddd.ddd

       where ddd is a one to three digit decimal number	 between  0  and  255.
       Note  that  many	 implementations  of the existing and functions accept
       nonstandard input:  octal numbers, hexadecimal numbers, and fewer  than
       four numbers.  does not accept these formats.

       If  the af argument is then the function accepts a string in one of the
       standard IPv6 text forms. (Refer to the IPv6 address notation below for
       more details).

   The inet_ntop() Function
       The function converts a numeric address into a text string suitable for
       presentation.

       The af argument specifies the family of the address. This can be or

       The src argument points to a buffer holding an IPv4 address if  the  af
       argument is or an IPv6 address if the af argument is

       The  dst	 argument points to a buffer where the function will store the
       resulting text string.

       The size argument specifies the size of this  buffer.  The  application
       must  specify  a non-NULL dst argument.	For IPv6 addresses, the buffer
       must be at least 46-octets.  For IPv4 addresses, the buffer must be  at
       least  16-octets. In order to allow applications to easily declare buf‐
       fers of the proper size to store IPv4  and  IPv6	 addresses  in	string
       form, the following two constants are defined in

       The function returns a pointer to the buffer containing the text string
       if the conversion succeeds, and NULL otherwise. Upon failure, errno  is
       set to if the af argument is invalid, or if the size of the result buf‐
       fer is inadequate.

   IPv6 Address Notation
       The IPv6 address is bytes long.	Example of an IPv6 address is as shown
       below:

       The  128 bits are written as eight 16-bit integers separated by colons.
       Each integer is represented by four hexadecimal digits.

       In the initial stages all the 128 bits will not be used, hence,	it  is
       very likely that there will be many zeros. Hence the IP address in such
       a scenario will look like this:

       The above address can be represented in a compact fashion, by replacing
       a  set  of  consecutive	null  16-bit  numbers by two colons. The above
       address can now be re-written as follows:

       Expanding the abbreviation is very simple. Align	 whatever  is  at  the
       left  of	 the  double  colon  to the left of the address: these are the
       leading 16-bit words. Then align whatever is at the right of the colons
       to the right of the address and fill up with zeros.

       The double-colon convention can be used only once inside an address.

       To  support  the	 transition  from IPv4, two special IPv6 addresses are
       supported. They are addresses and addresses.

   IPv4-Compatible Addresses Description and Example
       IPv4-compatible addresses can be converted to and from the  older  IPv4
       network	address format. They are used when IPv6 systems need to commu‐
       nicate with each other, but are separated by an IPv4 network.

       IPv4-compatible addresses are formed by prepending 96 bits of zero,  to
       a valid, 32-bit IPv4 address. For example, the IPv4 address of

       can  be	converted to the IPv6 address by first converting each decimal
       number separated by dots (".") to a 2-digit hexadecimal value, and con‐
       catenate into 4-digit hex values between colons (":") as listed below.

       In  addition,  leading zeros may be omitted for each hex number between
       the colons. Therefore, this  may	 be  written  as  the  following  IPv6
       address:

       We can retain the dot-decimal format and re-write the above address as

       The above address is also a valid IPv4-compatible IPv6 address.

   IPv4-Mapped Addresses Description and Example
       IPv4-mapped  addresses  indicate systems that do not support IPv6. They
       are limited to IPv4. An IPv6 host can  communicate  with	 an  IPv4-only
       host using the IPv4-mapped IPv6 address.

       IPv4-mapped  addresses are formed by prepending 80 bits of zero, and 16
       bits of one's, to a valid 32 bit IPv4 address. An IPv4 address of

       when mapped to IPv6, it becomes:

       or

AUTHOR
       These routines were developed by the University of  California,	Berke‐
       ley.

SEE ALSO
       gethostent(3N), getnetent(3N), inet(3N), hosts(4), networks(4).

								     inet6(3N)
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