[Python-Dev] address manipulation in the standard lib

[Guido van Rossum]

On Mon, Jan 5, 2009 at 9:10 AM, Duncan McGreggor
<duncan.mcgreggor at gmail.com> wrote:
> Last Fall, Guido opened a ticket to include Google's ipaddr.py in the
> standard lib:
>  http://bugs.python.org/issue3959
>
> There has been some recent discussion on that ticket, enough so that
> it might benefit everyone if it was moved on to the dev list. I do
> recommend reading that ticket, though -- lots of good perspectives are
> represented.
>
> The two libraries that are being discussed the most for possible
> inclusion are the following:
>  * http://code.google.com/p/ipaddr-py/wiki/IPAddrExmples
>  * http://code.google.com/p/netaddr/wiki/NetAddrExamples
>
> The most immediately obvious differences between the two are:
>  * ipaddr supports subnet/supernet/net exclusions
>  * netaddr supports EUI/MAC address manipulations
>  * the netaddr API differentiates between an IP and a CIDR block
>  * netaddr supports wildcard notation
>  * netaddr supports binary representations of addresses
>  * ipaddr is one module whereas netaddr consists of several (as well
> as IANA data for such things as vendor lookups on MAC addresses)
>  * ipaddr benchmarks as faster than netaddr
>  * netaddr is currently PEP-8 compliant
>
> That's a quick proto-assessment based on looking at examples and unit
> tests and didn't include a thorough evaluation of the code itself.

Thanks for the summary! I've been on vacation and unable to follow the
details. Note that I have no vested interest in Google's module except
knowing it has many happy users (I have never used it myself).

> Martin provided some very nice guidelines in a comment on the ticket:
>
> "I think Guido's original message summarizes [what we need]: a module
> that fills a gap for address manipulations... In addition, it should
> have all the organisational qualities (happy user base, determined
> maintainers, copyright forms, documentation, tests). As to what
> precisely its API should be - that is for the experts (i.e. you) to
> determine. I personally think performance is important, in addition to
> a well-designed, useful API. Conformance to PEP 8 is also desirable."
>
> I'm planning to chat with both David Moss (netaddr) and Peter Moody
> (ipaddr) on the mail lists about API details, and I encourage others
> to do this as well. As for this list, it's probably important to
> define the limits of the desired feature set for an ip address
> manipulation library:

>  * do we want to limit it to IP (i.e. no EUI/MAC support)?

I don't want to exclude EUI/MAC support, but it seems quit a separate
(and much more specialized) application area, so it's probably best to
keep it separate (even if it may make sense to use a common (abstract
or concrete) base class or just have similar APIs).

>  * do we want a single module or is a package acceptable?

I don't care either way.

>  * what features would folks consider essential or highly desirable
> (details on this will be discussed on the project mail lists)
>  * other thoughts?

How about a merger?

-- 
--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)