inet_pton() function gives only ip or ip and port number?

Question

In C does the function inet_pton() convert only the ip address from printble to string format or it also converts ip address and port number too? I mean, if I have a string of format A.B.C.D:E where A.B.C.D is the ip and E is the port number, would I be able to use inet_pton for the same?

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 25 '13 at 15:42

No, it does not handle port numbers. The man page specifies exactly what it expects for IPv4 addresses:

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.

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 25 '13 at 15:58

You have to split off the port number yourself. This is rather problematic since the way you go about doing that depends on whether the address is ipv4 or ipv6. I believe this issue is the reason many unix utilities use a -p option instead of the :port syntax to specify port.

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Jan 25 '13 at 16:09

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Use getaddrinfo() the swiss knife of the address conversion.

answered Jan 25 '13 at 16:09

Yann Droneaud

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This is good advice but you still have to split off the port number yourself. – R.. GitHub STOP HELPING ICE Jan 25 '13 at 20:52

inet_pton() function gives only ip or ip and port number?

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