How to convert an IPv4 address into a integer in C#?

I'm looking for a function that will convert a standard IPv4 address into an Integer. Bonus points available for a function that will do the opposite.

Solution should be in C#.

Answers:

32-bit unsigned integers are IPv4 addresses. Meanwhile, the IPAddress.Address property, while deprecated, is an Int64 that returns the unsigned 32-bit value of the IPv4 address (the catch is, it's in network byte order, so you need to swap it around).

For example, my local google.com is at 64.233.187.99. That's equivalent to:

64*2^24 + 233*2^16 + 187*2^8 + 99
= 1089059683

And indeed, http://1089059683/ works as expected (at least in Windows, tested with IE, Firefox and Chrome; doesn't work on iPhone though).

Here's a test program to show both conversions, including the network/host byte swapping:

using System;
using System.Net;

class App
{
    static long ToInt(string addr)
    {
        // careful of sign extension: convert to uint first;
        // unsigned NetworkToHostOrder ought to be provided.
        return (long) (uint) IPAddress.NetworkToHostOrder(
             (int) IPAddress.Parse(addr).Address);
    }

    static string ToAddr(long address)
    {
        return IPAddress.Parse(address.ToString()).ToString();
        // This also works:
        // return new IPAddress((uint) IPAddress.HostToNetworkOrder(
        //    (int) address)).ToString();
    }

    static void Main()
    {
        Console.WriteLine(ToInt('64.233.187.99'));
        Console.WriteLine(ToAddr(1089059683));
    }
}

Answers:

If you were interested in the function not just the answer here is how it is done:

int ipToInt(int first, int second, 
    int third, int fourth)
{
    return Convert.ToInt32((first * Math.Pow(256, 3))
        + (second * Math.Pow(256, 2)) + (third * 256) + fourth);
}

with first through fourth being the segments of the IPv4 address.

Answers:

@Barry Kelly and @Andrew Hare, actually, I don't think multiplying is the most clear way to do this (alltough correct).

An Int32 'formatted' IP address can be seen as the following structure

[StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential, Pack = 1)] 
struct IPv4Address
{
   public Byte A;
   public Byte B;
   public Byte C;
   public Byte D;
} 
// to actually cast it from or to an int32 I think you 
// need to reverse the fields due to little endian

So to convert the ip address 64.233.187.99 you could do:

(64  = 0x40) << 24 == 0x40000000
(233 = 0xE9) << 16 == 0x00E90000
(187 = 0xBB) << 8  == 0x0000BB00
(99  = 0x63)       == 0x00000063
                      ---------- =|
                      0x40E9BB63

so you could add them up using + or you could binairy or them together. Resulting in 0x40E9BB63 which is 1089059683. (In my opinion looking in hex it's much easier to see the bytes)

So you could write the function as:

int ipToInt(int first, int second, 
    int third, int fourth)
{
    return (first << 24) | (second << 16) | (third << 8) | (fourth);
}

Answers:

Take a look at some of the crazy parsing examples in .Net's IPAddress.Parse: (MSDN)

'65536' ==> 0.0.255.255
'20.2' ==> 20.0.0.2
'20.65535' ==> 20.0.255.255
'128.1.2' ==> 128.1.0.2

Answers:

My question was closed, I have no idea why . The accepted answer here is not the same as what I need.

This gives me the correct integer value for an IP..

public double IPAddressToNumber(string IPaddress)
{
    int i;
    string [] arrDec;
    double num = 0;
    if (IPaddress == '')
    {
        return 0;
    }
    else
    {
        arrDec = IPaddress.Split('.');
        for(i = arrDec.Length - 1; i >= 0 ; i = i -1)
            {
                num += ((int.Parse(arrDec[i])%256) * Math.Pow(256 ,(3 - i )));
            }
        return num;
    }
}

Answers:

here's a solution that I worked out today (should've googled first!):

    private static string IpToDecimal2(string ipAddress)
    {
        // need a shift counter
        int shift = 3;

        // loop through the octets and compute the decimal version
        var octets = ipAddress.Split('.').Select(p => long.Parse(p));
        return octets.Aggregate(0L, (total, octet) => (total + (octet << (shift-- * 8)))).ToString();
    }

i'm using LINQ, lambda and some of the extensions on generics, so while it produces the same result it uses some of the new language features and you can do it in three lines of code.

i have the explanation on my blog if you're interested.

cheers, -jc

Answers:

Try this ones:

private int IpToInt32(string ipAddress)
{
   return BitConverter.ToInt32(IPAddress.Parse(ipAddress).GetAddressBytes().Reverse().ToArray(), 0);
}

private string Int32ToIp(int ipAddress)
{
   return new IPAddress(BitConverter.GetBytes(ipAddress).Reverse().ToArray()).ToString();
}

Answers:

I think this is wrong: '65536' ==> 0.0.255.255' Should be: '65535' ==> 0.0.255.255' or '65536' ==> 0.1.0.0'

Answers:

I have encountered some problems with the described solutions, when facing IP Adresses with a very large value. The result would be, that the byte[0] * 16777216 thingy would overflow and become a negative int value. what fixed it for me, is the a simple type casting operation.

public static long ConvertIPToLong(string ipAddress)
{
    System.Net.IPAddress ip;

    if (System.Net.IPAddress.TryParse(ipAddress, out ip))
    {
        byte[] bytes = ip.GetAddressBytes();

        return
            16777216L * bytes[0] +
            65536 * bytes[1] +
            256 * bytes[2] +
            bytes[3]
            ;
    }
    else
        return 0;
}

Answers:

@Davy Ladman your solution with shift are corrent but only for ip starting with number less or equal 99, infact first octect must be cast up to long.

Anyway convert back with long type is quite difficult because store 64 bit (not 32 for Ip) and fill 4 bytes with zeroes

static uint ToInt(string addr)
{
   return BitConverter.ToUInt32(IPAddress.Parse(addr).GetAddressBytes(), 0);
}

static string ToAddr(uint address)
{
    return new IPAddress(address).ToString();
}

Enjoy!

Massimo

Answers:

Here's a pair of methods to convert from IPv4 to a correct integer and back:

public static uint ConvertFromIpAddressToInteger(string ipAddress)
{
    var address = IPAddress.Parse(ipAddress);
    byte[] bytes = address.GetAddressBytes();

    // flip big-endian(network order) to little-endian
    if (BitConverter.IsLittleEndian)
    {
        Array.Reverse(bytes);
    }

    return BitConverter.ToUInt32(bytes, 0);
}

public static string ConvertFromIntegerToIpAddress(uint ipAddress)
{
    byte[] bytes = BitConverter.GetBytes(ipAddress);

    // flip little-endian to big-endian(network order)
    if (BitConverter.IsLittleEndian)
    {
        Array.Reverse(bytes);
    }

    return new IPAddress(bytes).ToString();
}

Example

ConvertFromIpAddressToInteger('255.255.255.254'); // 4294967294
ConvertFromIntegerToIpAddress(4294967294); // 255.255.255.254

Explanation

IP addresses are in network order (big-endian), while ints are little-endian on Windows, so to get a correct value, you must reverse the bytes before converting on a little-endian system.

Also, even for IPv4, an int can't hold addresses bigger than 127.255.255.255, e.g. the broadcast address (255.255.255.255), so use a uint.

Answers:

With the UInt32 in the proper little-endian format, here are two simple conversion functions:

public uint GetIpAsUInt32(string ipString)
{
    IPAddress address = IPAddress.Parse(ipString);

    byte[] ipBytes = address.GetAddressBytes();

    Array.Reverse(ipBytes);

    return BitConverter.ToUInt32(ipBytes, 0);
}

public string GetIpAsString(uint ipVal)
{
    byte[] ipBytes = BitConverter.GetBytes(ipVal);

    Array.Reverse(ipBytes);

    return new IPAddress(ipBytes).ToString();
}

Answers:

public bool TryParseIPv4Address(string value, out uint result)
{
    IPAddress ipAddress;

    if (!IPAddress.TryParse(value, out ipAddress) ||
        (ipAddress.AddressFamily != System.Net.Sockets.AddressFamily.InterNetwork))
    {
        result = 0;
        return false;
    }

    result = BitConverter.ToUInt32(ipAddress.GetAddressBytes().Reverse().ToArray(), 0);
    return true;
}

Answers:

As noone posted the code that uses BitConverter and actually checks the endianness, here goes:

byte[] ip = address.Split('.').Select(s => Byte.Parse(s)).ToArray();
if (BitConverter.IsLittleEndian) {
  Array.Reverse(ip);
}
int num = BitConverter.ToInt32(ip, 0);

and back:

byte[] ip = BitConverter.GetBytes(num);
if (BitConverter.IsLittleEndian) {
  Array.Reverse(ip);
}
string address = String.Join('.', ip.Select(n => n.ToString()));

Answers:

The reverse of Davy Landman's function

string IntToIp(int d)
{
  int v1 = d & 0xff;
  int v2 = (d >> 8) & 0xff;
  int v3 = (d >> 16) & 0xff;
  int v4 = (d >> 24);
  return v4 + '.' + v3 + '.' + v2 + '.' + v1;
}

Answers:

    public static Int32 getLongIPAddress(string ipAddress)
    {
        return IPAddress.NetworkToHostOrder(BitConverter.ToInt32(IPAddress.Parse(ipAddress).GetAddressBytes(), 0));
    }

The above example would be the way I go.. Only thing you might have to do is convert to a UInt32 for display purposes, or string purposes including using it as a long address in string form.

Which is what is needed when using the IPAddress.Parse(String) function. Sigh.

Answers:

Assuming you have an IP Address in string format (eg. 254.254.254.254)

string[] vals = inVal.Split('.');
uint output = 0;
for (byte i = 0; i < vals.Length; i++) output += (uint)(byte.Parse(vals[i]) << 8 * (vals.GetUpperBound(0) - i));

Answers:

Assembled several of the above answers into an extension method that handles the Endianness of the machine and handles IPv4 addresses that were mapped to IPv6.

public static class IPAddressExtensions
{
    /// <summary>
    /// Converts IPv4 and IPv4 mapped to IPv6 addresses to an unsigned integer.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name='address'>The address to conver</param>
    /// <returns>An unsigned integer that represents an IPv4 address.</returns>
    public static uint ToUint(this IPAddress address)
    {
        if (address.AddressFamily == AddressFamily.InterNetwork || address.IsIPv4MappedToIPv6)
        {
            var bytes = address.GetAddressBytes();
            if (BitConverter.IsLittleEndian)
                Array.Reverse(bytes);

            return BitConverter.ToUInt32(bytes, 0);
        }
        throw new ArgumentOutOfRangeException('address', 'Address must be IPv4 or IPv4 mapped to IPv6');
    }
}

Unit tests:

[TestClass]
public class IPAddressExtensionsTests
{
    [TestMethod]
    public void SimpleIp1()
    {
        var ip = IPAddress.Parse('0.0.0.15');
        uint expected = GetExpected(0, 0, 0, 15);
        Assert.AreEqual(expected, ip.ToUint());
    }
    [TestMethod]
    public void SimpleIp2()
    {
        var ip = IPAddress.Parse('0.0.1.15');
        uint expected = GetExpected(0, 0, 1, 15);
        Assert.AreEqual(expected, ip.ToUint());
    }
    [TestMethod]
    public void SimpleIpSix1()
    {
        var ip = IPAddress.Parse('0.0.0.15').MapToIPv6();
        uint expected = GetExpected(0, 0, 0, 15);
        Assert.AreEqual(expected, ip.ToUint());
    }
    [TestMethod]
    public void SimpleIpSix2()
    {
        var ip = IPAddress.Parse('0.0.1.15').MapToIPv6();
        uint expected = GetExpected(0, 0, 1, 15);
        Assert.AreEqual(expected, ip.ToUint());
    }
    [TestMethod]
    public void HighBits()
    {
        var ip = IPAddress.Parse('200.12.1.15').MapToIPv6();
        uint expected = GetExpected(200, 12, 1, 15);
        Assert.AreEqual(expected, ip.ToUint());
    }
    uint GetExpected(uint a, uint b, uint c, uint d)
    {
        return
            (a * 256u * 256u * 256u) +
            (b * 256u * 256u) +
            (c * 256u) +
            (d);
    }
}

Answers:

var ipAddress = '10.101.5.56';

var longAddress = long.Parse(string.Join('', ipAddress.Split('.').Select(x => x.PadLeft(3, '0'))));

Console.WriteLine(longAddress);

Output: 10101005056

Answers:

var address = IPAddress.Parse('10.0.11.174').GetAddressBytes();
long m_Address = ((address[3] << 24 | address[2] << 16 | address[1] << 8 | address[0]) & 0x0FFFFFFFF);

Answers:

I noticed that System.Net.IPAddress have Address property (System.Int64) and constructor, which also accept Int64 data type. So you can use this to convert IP address to/from numeric (although not Int32, but Int64) format.

Answers: