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Date:      Sat, 10 Aug 2002 13:39:02 -0700 (PDT)
From:      Doug White <dwhite@gumbysoft.com>
To:        Antoine Beaupre <anarcat@anarcat.ath.cx>
Cc:        freebsd-arch@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: implementation differences between inet_aton() and inet_pton()
Message-ID:  <20020810132127.O38270-100000@carver.gumbysoft.com>
In-Reply-To: <3A565436-ABC5-11D6-BAC6-0050E4A0BB3F@anarcat.ath.cx>

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On Fri, 9 Aug 2002, Antoine Beaupre wrote:

> I just stumbled upon some differences between the results given by
> inet_aton() and inet_pton().
[...]
> Is this difference there by design or accident?

Reading the manpage, it appears to be by design. The API makes a
distinction between a "presentation address" vs a standard address. A
standard address can be multiple formats (assumably to allow for
flexibility in a program's internal representation of an address), but a
presentation address is assumed to be a dotted decimal quad in AF_INET
since it will be printed or passed externally.

The man page also mentions that addr2ascii(3) should be used in preference
to the inet_Xton functions. Don't know how well thats been followed :)

> In either case it should be documented how each function parses the
> numbers, because it is rather important.

A couple of sentences of clarification between the presentation & normal
addresses would be useful, yes.

-- 
Doug White                    |  FreeBSD: The Power to Serve
dwhite@gumbysoft.com          |  www.FreeBSD.org


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