NAME

       inet_pton - Create a network address structure

SYNOPSIS

       #include <sys/types.h>
       #include <sys/socket.h>
       #include <arpa/inet.h>

       int inet_pton(int af, const char *src, void *dst);

DESCRIPTION

       This function converts the character string src into a network address structure in the af
       address family, then copies the network address structure to dst.

       inet_pton(3) extends the inet_addr(3)  function  to  support  multiple  address  families,
       inet_addr(3)  is  now considered to be deprecated in favor of inet_pton(3).  The following
       address families are currently supported:

       AF_INET       src points to a character string containing an IPv4 network address  in  the
                     dotted-quad format, "ddd.ddd.ddd.ddd".  The address is converted to a struct
                     in_addr and copied to dst, which must be sizeof(struct in_addr) bytes long.

       AF_INET6      src points to a character string containing an IPv6 network address  in  any
                     allowed  IPv6 address format.  The address is converted to a struct in6_addr
                     and copied to dst, which must be sizeof(struct in6_addr) bytes long.

       Certain legacy hex and octal formats of AF_INET addresses are not supported by  inet_pton,
       which rejects them.

RETURN VALUES

       inet_pton returns a negative value and sets errno to EAFNOSUPPORT if af does not contain a
       valid address family.   0  is  returned  if  src  does  not  contain  a  character  string
       representing a valid network address in the specified address family.  A positive value is
       returned if the network address was succesfully converted.

SEE ALSO

       inet_ntop(3)

BUGS

       AF_INET6 does not recognize IPv4 addresses.  An explicit IPv6-mapped IPv4 address must  be
       supplied in src instead.