string compare question.Please Help!!!

[Evgeny Jonson]

#For IP addres something like this:

import string
import sys

def ip_cmp(ip1, ip2):
    """Compare IP addreses as strings
    """
    l_ip1 = ip1.split('.')
    l_ip2 = ip2.split('.')
    if len(l_ip1) == 4 and len(l_ip2) == 4:
        s_ip1 = string.zfill(l_ip1[0], 3) + '.' + \
                string.zfill(l_ip1[1], 3) + '.' + \
                string.zfill(l_ip1[2], 3) + '.' + \
                string.zfill(l_ip1[3], 3)
    
        s_ip2 = string.zfill(l_ip2[0], 3) + '.' + \
                string.zfill(l_ip2[1], 3) + '.' + \
                string.zfill(l_ip2[2], 3) + '.' + \
                string.zfill(l_ip2[3], 3)
        resault = cmp(s_ip1, s_ip2)
    else:
        print 'Wrong IP addres format!'
        sys.exit(0)

    return resault

# my test

print ip_cmp('10.66.73.78','10.0.0.0') # return 1
print ip_cmp('10.66.73.78','10.255.255.255')  # return -1