[Python-Dev] PEP 3144: IP Address Manipulation Library for the Python Standard Library

[Eric Smith]

Peter Moody wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 19, 2009 at 9:21 AM, R. David Murray<rdmurray at bitdance.com> wrote:

>> Possibly.  Tino means exactly what he said:  the broadcast address
>> does not _have_ to be the last IP, nor does the last IP _have_ to be
>> a broadcast, though in practice they almost always are (and using the
>> last IP as a host IP almost never works in practice in a heterogeneous
>> network).  Check out the 'broadcast' option of the ifconfig command for
>> confirmation that the broadcast address can be any IP in the network.
>> Of course, for that to work all hosts on the network have to agree on
>> what the broadcast is, hence the normal convention that the broadcast
>> is the last IP in the network.
>>
>> As for the 'network' attribute, if you call it 'network' IMO it should
>> be a network data type, which would make it rather redundant.  What you
>> are actually returning is what I have normally heard called either the
>> 'zero' of the network, or the "network number" or "network identifier";
>> but never just "network" (a network has to have at least an implicit
>> netmask to be meaningful, IMO).
>>
>> Since you are dealing with networks as a list of addresses, perhaps
>> you should drop the 'network' attribute, make the 'broadcast' attribute
>> settable with a default equal to self[-1], and let the user refer to
>> the zero element to get the zero of the network if they want it.
> 
> making the broadcast address settable (with a default to self[-1])
> might be reasonable, though it is different from just about every
> other python implementation I've seen (IPy, ipv4.py, netaddr).
> 
> I'm not sure I understand your point about the network attribute.
> what I'm returning with network is the subnet-id/base address of the
> given network. Again, .network seems to be fairly standard for naming.

I think using .network and .broadcast are pretty well understood to be 
the [0] and [-1] of the network address block. I don't think we want to 
start creating new terms or access patterns here.

+1 on leaving .network and .broadcast as-is (including returning a 
IPvXAddress object).

Eric.