[New-bugs-announce] [issue28619] [Patch] Stop using inet_ntoa() when possible.

[Ed Schouten]

New submission from Ed Schouten:

Modern C code should use inet_ntop()/inet_pton() as opposed to inet_addr()/inet_aton()/inet_ntoa().

Though the former functions may typically act as drop-in replacements for the latter, the inet_addr()/inet_aton() functions still have the advantage over inet_pton() of allowing you to parse IPv4 addresses that don't use the dotted quad notation (e.g. '0x0a000001' for 10.0.0.1).

There is no difference between inet_ntop() and inet_ntoa(), as they both always print the address in dotted quad form. inet_ntop() does have the advantage of being thread-safe, as inet_ntoa() uses internal storage for the return value. In other words, we'd better not use inet_ntoa() at all.

Attached is a patch for Python's socketmodule that changes the existing call to inet_ntoa() to use inet_ntop() when available. This has the advantage of fixing the build on CloudABI (https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2016-July/145708.html), which intentionally omits any APIs that are thread-unsafe.

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components: Extension Modules
files: patch-inet_ntoa.diff
keywords: patch
messages: 280109
nosy: EdSchouten
priority: normal
severity: normal
status: open
title: [Patch] Stop using inet_ntoa() when possible.
versions: Python 3.7
Added file: http://bugs.python.org/file45364/patch-inet_ntoa.diff

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