MySQL : Miscellaneous Functions

From : http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/miscellaneous-functions.html

INET_ATON() Return the numeric value of an IP address
INET_NTOA() Return the IP address from a numeric value
  • INET_ATON(expr)Given the dotted-quad representation of a network address as a string, returns an integer that represents the numeric value of the address. Addresses may be 4- or 8-byte addresses.
    mysql> SELECT INET_ATON('209.207.224.40');
            -> 3520061480

    The generated number is always in network byte order. For the example just shown, the number is calculated as 209×2563 + 207×2562 + 224×256 + 40.

    INET_ATON() also understands short-form IP addresses:

    mysql> SELECT INET_ATON('127.0.0.1'), INET_ATON('127.1');
            -> 2130706433, 2130706433

    Note

    When storing values generated by INET_ATON(), it is recommended that you use an INT UNSIGNED column. If you use a (signed) INT column, values corresponding to IP addresses for which the first octet is greater than 127 cannot be stored correctly. See Section 10.2, “Numeric Types”.

  • INET_NTOA(expr)Given a numeric network address in network byte order (4 or 8 byte), returns the dotted-quad representation of the address as a string.
    mysql> SELECT INET_NTOA(3520061480);
            -> '209.207.224.40'