[Python-Dev] Fwd: PEP 3144 review. (original) (raw)

Steven D'Aprano steve at pearwood.info
Thu Sep 17 19:27:33 CEST 2009

On Fri, 18 Sep 2009 12:44:04 am DrKJam wrote:

IPv6 doesn't support the notion of a broadcast address as part of a CIDR network block at all. AFAIK, it is a perfect legitimate for the last address in an IPv6 block to be used to configure a network interface. The IPv6 network object interface should possibly leave out the broadcast property/method altogether although there are reasons to keep it in for the sake of completeness and API consistency. The pros and cons of this need to be considered.

This seems to me to be rather weird: that for the sake of completeness and consistency you're considering to give an object which (allegedly) has no notion of "broadcast address" a broadcast address method.

If so, I can see three options. Given an appropriate IPv6 object:

obj.broadcast() always returns None.

obj.broadcast() always raises an exception.

obj.broadcast() always returns something which is not a broadcast address.

I would hope the third option isn't being seriously considered! Are there any reasons to consider the first two?

-- Steven D'Aprano

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