From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Ben Efros Subject: Re: RFC: Partial IP4 syntax Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 20:56:19 -0700 Sender: netfilter-devel-bounces@lists.netfilter.org Message-ID: <415A3263.7080708@xgendev.com> References: <415A12AE.1060901@parknet.dk> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: netfilter-devel@lists.netfilter.org Return-path: To: Simon Lodal In-Reply-To: <415A12AE.1060901@parknet.dk> List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: netfilter-devel-bounces@lists.netfilter.org List-Id: netfilter-devel.vger.kernel.org Simon Lodal wrote: > Examples: > 10 = 10.0.0.0/8 > Iknow IP address syntax should not change every day. But this will not > break or exclude old syntax. I do not see it clashing with > other/future syntax. Wrong. IP numbers can also be written in 32-bit unsigned notation. In your first example: 10 being 10.0.0.0/8 10 is actually treated as unsigned 32bit int, meaning you're address is actually 0.0.0.10 Try this command and see for yourself: "ping 5000" Notice how ping is actually sending to "0.0.19.136" ? This is done because 32-bit addresses should be representable as a 32bit number and not just as a string representation of the address for a variety of reasons. Unfortunately your idea would break a LOT of very useful tools and ways of representing valid ip numbers. Ben