ipaddress

A library for working and manipulating IPv4/IPv6 addresses and networks in modern C++.

Introduction

This cross-platfrom header-only library (for C++11 and newer) is inspired by the ipaddress API in Python, from which it derives its name. It aims to be simpler to use due to its familiar interface. However, the C++ implementation takes a different approach: it uses static polymorphism through the strategy pattern instead of dynamic polymorphism to handle differences between IP versions (IPv4 and IPv6). This design choice eliminates the overhead of dynamic calls and virtual tables. For instance, an instance of the ipv4_address class will be represented by 4 bytes.

The library leverages modern C++ features, ensuring that all IP address and network operations support constant expressions.

Compatibility

The library has been tested on the following compilers:

Clang 6.0.1 and newer;
Apple Clang 13.0.0 and newer;
GCC 7.5.0 and newer;
MSVC 14.29 (Visual Studio 16.11) and newer

Installation

You can install in one of the following ways

Use package managers

Conan

Add ipaddress dependency to conanfile.txt:

[requires]
ipaddress/1.1.0

More information and installation options can be found here https://conan.io/center/recipes/ipaddress

Vcpkg

You can install ipaddress using vcpkg dependency manager as follows:

./vcpkg install vladimirshaleev-ipaddress

or via vcpkg.json if your project uses manifest mode [1] [2]:

{
  "name": "my-project",
  "dependencies": [ "vladimirshaleev-ipaddress" ]
}

Ubuntu PPA

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:vladimirshaleev/ipaddress
sudo apt update

sudo apt install libipaddress-dev

Then, if you use CMake for build, you need to link the target (regardless of how you installed the package):

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.8.0)

project(my_project LANGUAGES CXX)

find_package(ipaddress CONFIG REQUIRED)

add_executable(my_project main.cpp)
target_link_libraries(my_project ipaddress::ipaddress) # add the library to your target

Use as a Submodule with CMake

Go to your project directory and add a submodule:

cd my_project
git submodule add https://github.com/VladimirShaleev/ipaddress.git third-party/ipaddress/

then in the CMake project add it to the directory:

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.8.0)

project(my_project LANGUAGES CXX)

add_subdirectory(third-party/ipaddress)

add_executable(my_project main.cpp)
target_link_libraries(my_project ipaddress::ipaddress) # add the library to your target

Use CMake FetchContent

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.8.0)

project(my_project LANGUAGES CXX)

include(FetchContent)
FetchContent_Declare(
  ipaddress
  GIT_REPOSITORY https://github.com/VladimirShaleev/ipaddress
  GIT_TAG v1.1.0
)
FetchContent_MakeAvailable(ipaddress)

add_executable(my_project main.cpp)
target_link_libraries(my_project ipaddress::ipaddress) # add the library to your target

Quick Start

The library provides capabilities for creating, analyzing and managing IPv4 and IPv6 addresses and networks using classes such as ipv4_address, ipv6_address, ip_address (any IP version), ipv4_network, ipv6_network and ip_network (any IP version). It also offers error handling methods with or without exceptions if for some reason exceptions are not used or disabled in your project.

To start using the library, simply include the header ipaddress/ipaddress.hpp, and you’re ready to begin your work!

Here is an example demonstrating some of the library's features (this example can be compiled with C++14 or higher):

#include <iostream>

#include <ipaddress/ipaddress.hpp>

using namespace ipaddress;

void parse_ip_sample() {
    constexpr auto ip = ipv6_address::parse("fec0::1ff:fe23:4567:890a%eth2");
    constexpr auto is_site_local = ip.is_site_local();

    std::cout << "ip " << ip << " is local: " << std::boolalpha << is_site_local << std::endl;
    std::cout << "DNS PTR " << ip.reverse_pointer() << std::endl << std::endl;
}

void teredo_sample() {
    constexpr auto teredo_ip = "2001:0000:4136:e378:8000:63bf:3fff:fdd2"_ipv6;
    auto [server, client] = teredo_ip.teredo().value();

    std::cout << "server: " << server << " and client: " << client << " for " << teredo_ip << std::endl << std::endl;
}

void subnets_sample() {
    constexpr auto net = ipv4_network::parse("192.0.2.0/24");

    std::cout << "subnets for " << net << ':' << std::endl;
    for (const auto& subnet : net.subnets(2)) {
        std::cout << "  " << subnet << std::endl;
    }

    constexpr auto last_subnet = net.subnets(2).back();
    std::cout << "last subnet " << last_subnet << std::endl;
}

int main() {
    parse_ip_sample();
    teredo_sample();
    subnets_sample();
    return 0;
}

Documentation

For more details on setup, usage and code examples can be found in the full documentation.