inet_ntoa function (winsock.h)

The inet_ntoa function converts an (Ipv4) Internet network address into an ASCII string in Internet standard dotted-decimal format.

Syntax

char * inet_ntoa(
  in_addr in
);

Parameters

in

TBD

Return value

If no error occurs, inet_ntoa returns a character pointer to a static buffer containing the text address in standard ".'' notation. Otherwise, it returns NULL.

Remarks

The inet_ntoa function takes an Internet address structure specified by the in parameter and returns a NULL-terminated ASCII string that represents the address in "." (dot) notation as in "192.168.16.0", an example of an IPv4 address in dotted-decimal notation. The string returned by inet_ntoa resides in memory that is allocated by Windows Sockets. The application should not make any assumptions about the way in which the memory is allocated. The string returned is guaranteed to be valid only until the next Windows Sockets function call is made within the same thread. Therefore, the data should be copied before another Windows Sockets call is made.

The WSAAddressToString function can be used to convert a sockaddr structure containing an IPv4 address to a string representation of an IPv4 address in Internet standard dotted-decimal notation. The advantage of the WSAAddressToString function is that it supports both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses. Another advantage of the WSAAddressToString function is that there are both ASCII and Unicode versions of this function.

On Windows Vista and later, the RtlIpv4AddressToString function can be used to convert an IPv4 address represented as an IN_ADDR structure to a string representation of an IPv4 address in Internet standard dotted-decimal notation. On Windows Vista and later, the RtlIpv6AddressToString function can be used to convert an IPv6 address represented as an IN6_ADDR structure to a string representation of an IPv6 address.

Windows Phone 8: This function is supported for Windows Phone Store apps on Windows Phone 8 and later.

Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2: This function is supported for Windows Store apps on Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012 R2, and later.

Requirements

Requirement Value
Minimum supported client Windows 8.1, Windows Vista [desktop apps | UWP apps]
Minimum supported server Windows Server 2003 [desktop apps | UWP apps]
Target Platform Windows
Header winsock.h (include Winsock2.h, Winsock.h)
Library Ws2_32.lib
DLL Ws2_32.dll

See also

IN6_ADDR

InetNtop

RtlIpv4AddressToString

RtlIpv4AddressToStringEx

RtlIpv4StringToAddress

RtlIpv4StringToAddressEx

RtlIpv6AddressToString

RtlIpv6AddressToStringEx

RtlIpv6StringToAddress

RtlIpv6StringToAddressEx

SOCKADDR

WSAAddressToString

Winsock Functions

Winsock Reference

in_addr

inet_addr