[Python-Dev] address manipulation in the standard lib (original) (raw)

Guido van Rossum guido at python.org
Mon Jan 5 18:44:12 CET 2009

On Mon, Jan 5, 2009 at 9:10 AM, Duncan McGreggor <duncan.mcgreggor at gmail.com> wrote:

Last Fall, Guido opened a ticket to include Google's ipaddr.py in the standard lib: http://bugs.python.org/issue3959

There has been some recent discussion on that ticket, enough so that it might benefit everyone if it was moved on to the dev list. I do recommend reading that ticket, though -- lots of good perspectives are represented. The two libraries that are being discussed the most for possible inclusion are the following: * http://code.google.com/p/ipaddr-py/wiki/IPAddrExmples * http://code.google.com/p/netaddr/wiki/NetAddrExamples The most immediately obvious differences between the two are: * ipaddr supports subnet/supernet/net exclusions * netaddr supports EUI/MAC address manipulations * the netaddr API differentiates between an IP and a CIDR block * netaddr supports wildcard notation * netaddr supports binary representations of addresses * ipaddr is one module whereas netaddr consists of several (as well as IANA data for such things as vendor lookups on MAC addresses) * ipaddr benchmarks as faster than netaddr * netaddr is currently PEP-8 compliant That's a quick proto-assessment based on looking at examples and unit tests and didn't include a thorough evaluation of the code itself.

Thanks for the summary! I've been on vacation and unable to follow the details. Note that I have no vested interest in Google's module except knowing it has many happy users (I have never used it myself).

Martin provided some very nice guidelines in a comment on the ticket:

"I think Guido's original message summarizes [what we need]: a module that fills a gap for address manipulations... In addition, it should have all the organisational qualities (happy user base, determined maintainers, copyright forms, documentation, tests). As to what precisely its API should be - that is for the experts (i.e. you) to determine. I personally think performance is important, in addition to a well-designed, useful API. Conformance to PEP 8 is also desirable." I'm planning to chat with both David Moss (netaddr) and Peter Moody (ipaddr) on the mail lists about API details, and I encourage others to do this as well. As for this list, it's probably important to define the limits of the desired feature set for an ip address manipulation library:

* do we want to limit it to IP (i.e. no EUI/MAC support)?

I don't want to exclude EUI/MAC support, but it seems quit a separate (and much more specialized) application area, so it's probably best to keep it separate (even if it may make sense to use a common (abstract or concrete) base class or just have similar APIs).

* do we want a single module or is a package acceptable?

I don't care either way.

* what features would folks consider essential or highly desirable (details on this will be discussed on the project mail lists) * other thoughts?

How about a merger?

-- --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)

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