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9.11. Network Address Functions and Operators

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) int extract netmask length masklen('192.168.1.5/24') 24
set_masklen(inet, int) 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
family(inet) int extract family of address; 4 for IPv4, 6 for IPv6 family('::1') 6

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.