Path: text.usenetserver.com!out04b.usenetserver.com!news.usenetserver.com!in02.usenetserver.com!news.usenetserver.com!news-out.octanews.net!indigo.octanews.net!authen.yellow.readfreenews.net.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Geoff Muldoon Newsgroups: comp.databases.oracle.server Subject: Re: modelling IPv6 as a number Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2006 10:51:52 +1100 Message-ID: References: <1165952118.737337.35940@80g2000cwy.googlegroups.com> <48eun21c7nbevj9pspfvknctcof5551pfl@4ax.com> Organization: Southern Cross University MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-15" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit User-Agent: MicroPlanet-Gravity/2.60.2060 Lines: 25 NNTP-Posting-Date: 12 Dec 2006 17:51:14 CST X-Trace: DXC=WRL4>OhNnM]5?I?\MH??jU]AGWjF5PjPY465Ue@WB_5_gFYi?58_OhQI0V42BOHUiWbI8A6IiUbTT:n0^ha1E`oWlJ\V2XbPiiX Xref: usenetserver.com comp.databases.oracle.server:419081 X-Received-Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2006 18:51:14 EST (text.usenetserver.com) andy@andyh.co.uk says... > wrote: > >maxwell.dana@gmail.com says... > > > >> If I'm not mistaken, IPv6 requires 39 significant digits to represent > >> each possible IP as an integer. Oracle's maximum is number(38). Has > >> anyone devised a scheme to store the integer value of IPv6 in oracle? > > > >Why ever would you store it as a number? It isn't an attribute to which > >you can naturally apply *numeric* functions, adding two IPv6 addresses > >together doesn't make much sense. Store it as a string. > > One situation where the fact that an IPv4 address is a number shows up is in > netmasks, for working out subnets and broadcast addresses. Presumably there are > some similar operations that still apply to IPv6 addresses? subnet ~ substring My general rule: if you add two values together and the result is meaningless, it's not a number, it's a string. Using that rule I win most arguments about also storing values such as phone numbers and postal/zip codes as strings instead of numbers. Geoff M