Supported Versions: Current (17) / 16 / 15 / 14 / 13
Development Versions: devel
Unsupported versions: 12 / 11 / 10 / 9.6 / 9.5 / 9.4 / 9.3 / 9.2 / 9.1 / 9.0 / 8.4 / 8.3 / 8.2 / 8.1 / 8.0 / 7.4 / 7.3 / 7.2 / 7.1
This documentation is for an unsupported version of PostgreSQL.
You may want to view the same page for the current version, or one of the other supported versions listed above instead.

9.10. Network Address Type Functions

Table 9-31 shows the operators available for the cidr and inet types. The operators <<, <<=, >>, and >>= test for subnet inclusion. They consider only the network parts of the two addresses, ignoring any host part, and determine whether one network part is identical to or a subnet of the other.

Table 9-31. cidr and inet Operators

Operator Description Example
< is less than inet '192.168.1.5' < inet '192.168.1.6'
<= is less than or equal inet '192.168.1.5' <= inet '192.168.1.5'
= equals inet '192.168.1.5' = inet '192.168.1.5'
>= is greater or equal inet '192.168.1.5' >= inet '192.168.1.5'
> is greater than inet '192.168.1.5' > inet '192.168.1.4'
<> is not equal inet '192.168.1.5' <> inet '192.168.1.4'
<< is contained within inet '192.168.1.5' << inet '192.168.1/24'
<<= is contained within or equals inet '192.168.1/24' <<= inet '192.168.1/24'
>> contains inet'192.168.1/24' >> inet '192.168.1.5'
>>= contains or equals inet '192.168.1/24' >>= inet '192.168.1/24'

Table 9-32 shows the functions available for use with the cidr and inet types. The host, text, and abbrev functions are primarily intended to offer alternative display formats. You can cast a text value to inet using normal casting syntax: inet(expression) or colname::inet.

Table 9-32. cidr and inet Functions

Function Return Type Description Example Result
broadcast(inet) inet broadcast address for network broadcast('192.168.1.5/24') 192.168.1.255/24
host(inet) text extract IP address as text host('192.168.1.5/24') 192.168.1.5
masklen(inet) integer extract netmask length masklen('192.168.1.5/24') 24
set_masklen(inet, integer) inet set netmask length for inet value set_masklen('192.168.1.5/24', 16) 192.168.1.5/16
netmask(inet) inet construct netmask for network netmask('192.168.1.5/24') 255.255.255.0
hostmask(inet) inet construct host mask for network hostmask('192.168.23.20/30') 0.0.0.3
network(inet) cidr extract network part of address network('192.168.1.5/24') 192.168.1.0/24
text(inet) text extract IP address and netmask length as text text(inet '192.168.1.5') 192.168.1.5/32
abbrev(inet) text abbreviated display format as text abbrev(cidr '10.1.0.0/16') 10.1/16

Table 9-33 shows the functions available for use with the macaddr type. The function trunc(macaddr) returns a MAC address with the last 3 bytes set to zero. This can be used to associate the remaining prefix with a manufacturer. The directory contrib/mac in the source distribution contains some utilities to create and maintain such an association table.

Table 9-33. macaddr Functions

Function Return Type Description Example Result
trunc(macaddr) macaddr set last 3 bytes to zero trunc(macaddr '12:34:56:78:90:ab') 12:34:56:00:00:00

The macaddr type also supports the standard relational operators (>, <=, etc.) for lexicographical ordering.