| This class represents an Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) address.
Defined by
RFC 790: Assigned Numbers,
RFC 1918: Address Allocation for Private Internets,
and RFC 2365:
Administratively Scoped IP Multicast
Textual representation of IPv4 address used as input to methods
takes one of the following forms:
When four parts are specified, each is interpreted as a byte of
data and assigned, from left to right, to the four bytes of an IPv4
address.
When a three part address is specified, the last part is
interpreted as a 16-bit quantity and placed in the right most two
bytes of the network address. This makes the three part address
format convenient for specifying Class B net- work addresses as
128.net.host.
When a two part address is supplied, the last part is
interpreted as a 24-bit quantity and placed in the right most three
bytes of the network address. This makes the two part address
format convenient for specifying Class A network addresses as
net.host.
When only one part is given, the value is stored directly in
the network address without any byte rearrangement.
For methods that return a textual representation as output
value, the first form, i.e. a dotted-quad string, is used.
The Scope of a Multicast Address
Historically the IPv4 TTL field in the IP header has doubled as a
multicast scope field: a TTL of 0 means node-local, 1 means
link-local, up through 32 means site-local, up through 64 means
region-local, up through 128 means continent-local, and up through
255 are global. However, the administrative scoping is preferred.
Please refer to
RFC 2365: Administratively Scoped IP Multicast
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