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NAME |LIBRARY |SYNOPSIS |DESCRIPTION |ATTRIBUTES |STANDARDS |STANDARDS |NOTES |EXAMPLES |SEE ALSO |COLOPHON | |
inet(3) Library Functions Manualinet(3)inet_aton, inet_addr, inet_network, inet_ntoa, inet_makeaddr, inet_lnaof, inet_netof - Internet address manipulation routines
Standard C library (libc,-lc)
#include <sys/socket.h>#include <netinet/in.h>#include <arpa/inet.h>int inet_aton(const char *cp, struct in_addr *inp);in_addr_t inet_addr(const char *cp);in_addr_t inet_network(const char *cp);[[deprecated]] char *inet_ntoa(struct in_addrin);[[deprecated]] struct in_addr inet_makeaddr(in_addr_tnet,in_addr_thost);[[deprecated]] in_addr_t inet_lnaof(struct in_addrin);[[deprecated]] in_addr_t inet_netof(struct in_addrin); Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (seefeature_test_macros(7)):inet_aton(),inet_ntoa(): Since glibc 2.19: _DEFAULT_SOURCE In glibc up to and including 2.19: _BSD_SOURCE || _BSD_SOURCE
inet_aton() converts the Internet host addresscp from the IPv4 numbers-and-dots notation into binary form (in network byte order) and stores it in the structure thatinp points to.inet_aton() returns nonzero if the address is valid, zero if not. The address supplied incp can have one of the following forms:a.b.c.d Each of the four numeric parts specifies a byte of the address; the bytes are assigned in left-to-right order to produce the binary address.a.b.c Partsa andb specify the first two bytes of the binary address. Partc is interpreted as a 16-bit value that defines the rightmost two bytes of the binary address. This notation is suitable for specifying (outmoded) Class B network addresses.a.b Parta specifies the first byte of the binary address. Partb is interpreted as a 24-bit value that defines the rightmost three bytes of the binary address. This notation is suitable for specifying (outmoded) Class A network addresses.a The valuea is interpreted as a 32-bit value that is stored directly into the binary address without any byte rearrangement. In all of the above forms, components of the dotted address can be specified in decimal, octal (with a leading0), or hexadecimal, with a leading0X). Addresses in any of these forms are collectively termedIPV4 numbers-and-dots notation. The form that uses exactly four decimal numbers is referred to asIPv4 dotted-decimal notation (or sometimes:IPv4 dotted-quad notation).inet_aton() returns 1 if the supplied string was successfully interpreted, or 0 if the string is invalid (errnoisnot set on error). Theinet_addr() function converts the Internet host addresscp from IPv4 numbers-and-dots notation into binary data in network byte order. If the input is invalid,INADDR_NONE(usually -1) is returned. Use of this function is problematic because -1 is a valid address (255.255.255.255). Avoid its use in favor ofinet_aton(),inet_pton(3), orgetaddrinfo(3), which provide a cleaner way to indicate error return. Theinet_network() function convertscp, a string in IPv4 numbers- and-dots notation, into a number in host byte order suitable for use as an Internet network address. On success, the converted address is returned. If the input is invalid, -1 is returned. Theinet_ntoa() function converts the Internet host addressin, given in network byte order, to a string in IPv4 dotted-decimal notation. The string is returned in a statically allocated buffer, which subsequent calls will overwrite. Theinet_lnaof() function returns the local network address part of the Internet addressin. The returned value is in host byte order. Theinet_netof() function returns the network number part of the Internet addressin. The returned value is in host byte order. Theinet_makeaddr() function is the converse ofinet_netof() andinet_lnaof(). It returns an Internet host address in network byte order, created by combining the network number.I net with the local addresshost, both in host byte order. The structurein_addr as used ininet_ntoa(),inet_makeaddr(),inet_lnaof(), andinet_netof() is defined in<netinet/in.h> as: typedef uint32_t in_addr_t; struct in_addr { in_addr_t s_addr; };For an explanation of the terms used in this section, seeattributes(7). ┌───────────────────────────────┬───────────────┬────────────────┐ │Interface│Attribute│Value│ ├───────────────────────────────┼───────────────┼────────────────┤ │inet_aton(),inet_addr(), │ Thread safety │ MT-Safe locale │ │inet_network(),inet_ntoa() │ │ │ ├───────────────────────────────┼───────────────┼────────────────┤ │inet_makeaddr(), │ Thread safety │ MT-Safe │ │inet_lnaof(),inet_netof() │ │ │ └───────────────────────────────┴───────────────┴────────────────┘
inet_addr()inet_ntoa() POSIX.1-2008.inet_aton() None.
inet_addr()inet_ntoa() POSIX.1-2001, 4.3BSD.inet_lnaof(),inet_netof(), andinet_makeaddr() are legacy functions that assume they are dealing withclassful networkaddresses. Classful networking divides IPv4 network addresses into host and network components at byte boundaries, as follows: Class A This address type is indicated by the value 0 in the most significant bit of the (network byte ordered) address. The network address is contained in the most significant byte, and the host address occupies the remaining three bytes. Class B This address type is indicated by the binary value 10 in the most significant two bits of the address. The network address is contained in the two most significant bytes, and the host address occupies the remaining two bytes. Class C This address type is indicated by the binary value 110 in the most significant three bits of the address. The network address is contained in the three most significant bytes, and the host address occupies the remaining byte. Classful network addresses are now obsolete, having been superseded by Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR), which divides addresses into network and host components at arbitrary bit (rather than byte) boundaries.
On x86 architectures, the host byte order is Least Significant Byte first (little endian), whereas the network byte order, as used on the Internet, is Most Significant Byte first (big endian).
An example of the use ofinet_aton() andinet_ntoa() is shown below. Here are some example runs: $./a.out 226.000.000.037# Last byte is in octal 226.0.0.31 $./a.out 0x7f.1# First byte is in hex 127.0.0.1Program source #define _DEFAULT_SOURCE #include <arpa/inet.h> #include <stdio.h> #include <stdlib.h> int main(int argc, char *argv[]) { struct in_addr addr; if (argc != 2) { fprintf(stderr, "%s <dotted-address>\n", argv[0]); exit(EXIT_FAILURE); } if (inet_aton(argv[1], &addr) == 0) { fprintf(stderr, "Invalid address\n"); exit(EXIT_FAILURE); } printf("%s\n", inet_ntoa(addr)); exit(EXIT_SUCCESS); }byteorder(3),getaddrinfo(3),gethostbyname(3),getnameinfo(3),getnetent(3),inet_net_pton(3),inet_ntop(3),inet_pton(3),hosts(5),networks(5)
This page is part of theman-pages (Linux kernel and C library user-space interface documentation) project. Information about the project can be found at ⟨https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/⟩. If you have a bug report for this manual page, see ⟨https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/docs/man-pages/man-pages.git/tree/CONTRIBUTING⟩. This page was obtained from the tarball man-pages-6.15.tar.gz fetched from ⟨https://mirrors.edge.kernel.org/pub/linux/docs/man-pages/⟩ on 2025-08-11. If you discover any rendering problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there is a better or more up- to-date source for the page, or you have corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON (which isnot part of the original manual page), send a mail to man-pages@man7.orgLinux man-pages 6.15 2025-05-17inet(3)Pages that refer to this page:getaddrinfo(3), getaddrinfo_a(3), gethostbyname(3), inet_net_pton(3), inet_ntop(3), inet_pton(3), networks(5), ip(7)
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