API component

IPAddress

Description

ThetoString() for an IPv6 type address has a different output fromprintTo(), and does not follow the RFC 5952 canonical format. It has an unnecessarily long fixed length format. Note that IPv4 does not use a fixed length format.

Also note that the existingprintTo() method already implements the RFC 5952 canonical format algorithm, and has extensive tests (there are no tests for thetoString() method).

The recommendation would be fortoString() simply to use the existing algorithm fromprintTo() (and add some unit tests fortoString).

Is this a breaking change?

No. Both formats are valid string formats for IPv6, andfromString() handles both of them (and all other valid formats), as should any other system. The canonical format is usually shorter, but will not exceed the fixed length format, so there is no issue with overruns.