Class Inet6Address
- All Implemented Interfaces:
Serializable
Textual representation of IPv6 addresses
Textual representation of IPv6 address used as input to methods takes one of the following forms:The preferred form is x:x:x:x:x:x:x:x, where the 'x's are the hexadecimal values of the eight 16-bit pieces of the address. This is the full form. For example,
1080:0:0:0:8:800:200C:417A
Note that it is not necessary to write the leading zeros in an individual field. However, there must be at least one numeral in every field, except as described below.
Due to some methods of allocating certain styles of IPv6 addresses, it will be common for addresses to contain long strings of zero bits. In order to make writing addresses containing zero bits easier, a special syntax is available to compress the zeros. The use of "::" indicates multiple groups of 16-bits of zeros. The "::" can only appear once in an address. The "::" can also be used to compress the leading and/or trailing zeros in an address. For example,
1080::8:800:200C:417A
An alternative form that is sometimes more convenient when dealing with a mixed environment of IPv4 and IPv6 nodes is x:x:x:x:x:x:d.d.d.d, where the 'x's are the hexadecimal values of the six high-order 16-bit pieces of the address, and the 'd's are the decimal values of the four low-order 8-bit pieces of the standard IPv4 representation address, for example,
::FFFF:129.144.52.38
::129.144.52.38
where "::FFFF:d.d.d.d" and "::d.d.d.d" are, respectively, the general forms of an IPv4-mapped IPv6 address and an IPv4-compatible IPv6 address. Note that the IPv4 portion must be in the "d.d.d.d" form. The following forms are invalid:
::FFFF:d.d.d
::FFFF:d.d
::d.d.d
::d.d
The following form:
::FFFF:d
is valid, however it is an unconventional representation of the IPv4-compatible IPv6 address,
::255.255.0.d
while "::d" corresponds to the general IPv6 address "0:0:0:0:0:0:0:d".
For methods that return a textual representation as output value, the full form is used. Inet6Address will return the full form because it is unambiguous when used in combination with other textual data.
Special IPv6 address
- IPv4-mapped address
- Of the form ::ffff:w.x.y.z, this IPv6 address is used to represent an IPv4 address. It allows the native program to use the same address data structure and also the same socket when communicating with both IPv4 and IPv6 nodes.
In InetAddress and Inet6Address, it is used for internal representation; it has no functional role. Java will never return an IPv4-mapped address. These classes can take an IPv4-mapped address as input, both in byte array and text representation. However, it will be converted into an IPv4 address.
Textual representation of IPv6 scoped addresses
The textual representation of IPv6 addresses as described above can be extended to specify IPv6 scoped addresses. This extension to the basic addressing architecture is described in RFC 4007: IPv6 Scoped Address Architecture.
Because link-local and site-local addresses are non-global, it is possible that different hosts may have the same destination address and may be reachable through different interfaces on the same originating system. In this case, the originating system is said to be connected to multiple zones of the same scope. In order to disambiguate which is the intended destination zone, it is possible to append a zone identifier (or scope_id) to an IPv6 address.
The general format for specifying the scope_id is the following:
IPv6-address%scope_id
The IPv6-address is a literal IPv6 address as described above. The scope_id refers to an interface on the local system, and it can be specified in two ways.
- As a numeric identifier. This must be a positive integer that identifies the particular interface and scope as understood by the system. Usually, the numeric values can be determined through administration tools on the system. Each interface may have multiple values, one for each scope. If the scope is unspecified, then the default value used is zero.
- As a string. This must be the exact string that is returned by
NetworkInterface.getName()
for the particular interface in question. When an Inet6Address is created in this way, the numeric scope-id is determined at the time the object is created by querying the relevant NetworkInterface.
Note also, that the numeric scope_id can be retrieved from Inet6Address instances returned from the NetworkInterface class. This can be used to find out the current scope ids configured on the system.
Textual representation of IPv6 addresses as method inputs
Methods of InetAddress
and Inet6Address
that accept a
textual representation of an IPv6 address allow for that representation
to be enclosed in square brackets. For example,
// The full IPv6 form
InetAddress.getByName("1080:0:0:0:8:800:200C:417A"); // ==> /1080:0:0:0:8:800:200c:417a
InetAddress.getByName("[1080:0:0:0:8:800:200C:417A]"); // ==> /1080:0:0:0:8:800:200c:417a
// IPv6 scoped address with scope-id as string
Inet6Address.ofLiteral("fe80::1%en0"); // ==> /fe80:0:0:0:0:0:0:1%en0
Inet6Address.ofLiteral("[fe80::1%en0]"); // ==> /fe80:0:0:0:0:0:0:1%en0
- Since:
- 1.4
- External Specifications
- See Also:
-
Method Summary
Modifier and TypeMethodDescriptionboolean
Compares this object against the specified object.byte[]
Returns the raw IP address of thisInetAddress
object.static Inet6Address
getByAddress
(String host, byte[] addr, int scope_id) Create an Inet6Address in the exact manner ofInetAddress.getByAddress(String,byte[])
except that the IPv6 scope_id is set to the given numeric value.static Inet6Address
getByAddress
(String host, byte[] addr, NetworkInterface nif) Create an Inet6Address in the exact manner ofInetAddress.getByAddress(String,byte[])
except that the IPv6 scope_id is set to the value corresponding to the given interface for the address type specified inaddr
.Returns the IP address string in textual presentation.Returns the scoped interface, if this instance was created with a scoped interface.int
Returns the numeric scopeId, if this instance is associated with an interface.int
hashCode()
Returns a hashcode for this IP address.boolean
Utility routine to check if the InetAddress is a wildcard address.boolean
Utility routine to check if the InetAddress is an IPv4 compatible IPv6 address.boolean
Utility routine to check if the InetAddress is a link local address.boolean
Utility routine to check if the InetAddress is a loopback address.boolean
Utility routine to check if the multicast address has global scope.boolean
Utility routine to check if the multicast address has link scope.boolean
Utility routine to check if the multicast address has node scope.boolean
Utility routine to check if the multicast address has organization scope.boolean
Utility routine to check if the multicast address has site scope.boolean
Utility routine to check if the InetAddress is an IP multicast address. 11111111 at the start of the address identifies the address as being a multicast address.boolean
Utility routine to check if the InetAddress is a site local address.static InetAddress
Creates anInetAddress
based on the provided textual representation of an IPv6 address.Methods inherited from class java.net.InetAddress
getAllByName, getByAddress, getByAddress, getByName, getCanonicalHostName, getHostName, getLocalHost, getLoopbackAddress, isReachable, isReachable, toString
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Method Details
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getByAddress
public static Inet6Address getByAddress(String host, byte[] addr, NetworkInterface nif) throws UnknownHostException Create an Inet6Address in the exact manner ofInetAddress.getByAddress(String,byte[])
except that the IPv6 scope_id is set to the value corresponding to the given interface for the address type specified inaddr
. The call will fail with an UnknownHostException if the given interface does not have a numeric scope_id assigned for the given address type (e.g. link-local or site-local). See here for a description of IPv6 scoped addresses.- Parameters:
host
- the specified hostaddr
- the raw IP address in network byte ordernif
- an interface this address must be associated with.- Returns:
- an Inet6Address object created from the raw IP address.
- Throws:
UnknownHostException
- if IP address is of illegal length, or if the interface does not have a numeric scope_id assigned for the given address type.- Since:
- 1.5
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getByAddress
public static Inet6Address getByAddress(String host, byte[] addr, int scope_id) throws UnknownHostException Create an Inet6Address in the exact manner ofInetAddress.getByAddress(String,byte[])
except that the IPv6 scope_id is set to the given numeric value. The scope_id is not checked to determine if it corresponds to any interface on the system. See here for a description of IPv6 scoped addresses.- Parameters:
host
- the specified hostaddr
- the raw IP address in network byte orderscope_id
- the numeric scope_id for the address.- Returns:
- an Inet6Address object created from the raw IP address.
- Throws:
UnknownHostException
- if IP address is of illegal length.- Since:
- 1.5
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ofLiteral
Creates anInetAddress
based on the provided textual representation of an IPv6 address.If the provided address literal cannot represent a valid IPv6 address an
IllegalArgumentException
is thrown. AnIllegalArgumentException
is also thrown if an IPv6 scoped address literal contains a scope-id that doesn't map to any network interface on the system, or if a scope-id is present in an IPv4-mapped IPv6 address literal.This method doesn't block, i.e. no reverse lookup is performed.
Note that IPv6 address literal forms are also supported when enclosed in square brackets. Note also that if the supplied literal represents an IPv4-mapped IPv6 address an instance of
Inet4Address
is returned.- Parameters:
ipv6AddressLiteral
- the textual representation of an IPv6 address.- Returns:
- an
InetAddress
object with no hostname set, and constructed from the provided IPv6 address literal. - Throws:
IllegalArgumentException
- if theipv6AddressLiteral
cannot be parsed as an IPv6 address literal.NullPointerException
- if theipv6AddressLiteral
isnull
.- Since:
- 22
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isMulticastAddress
public boolean isMulticastAddress()Utility routine to check if the InetAddress is an IP multicast address. 11111111 at the start of the address identifies the address as being a multicast address.- Overrides:
isMulticastAddress
in classInetAddress
- Returns:
- a
boolean
indicating if the InetAddress is an IP multicast address
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isAnyLocalAddress
public boolean isAnyLocalAddress()Utility routine to check if the InetAddress is a wildcard address.- Overrides:
isAnyLocalAddress
in classInetAddress
- Returns:
- a
boolean
indicating if the InetAddress is a wildcard address.
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isLoopbackAddress
public boolean isLoopbackAddress()Utility routine to check if the InetAddress is a loopback address.- Overrides:
isLoopbackAddress
in classInetAddress
- Returns:
- a
boolean
indicating if the InetAddress is a loopback address; or false otherwise.
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isLinkLocalAddress
public boolean isLinkLocalAddress()Utility routine to check if the InetAddress is a link local address.- Overrides:
isLinkLocalAddress
in classInetAddress
- Returns:
- a
boolean
indicating if the InetAddress is a link local address; or false if address is not a link local unicast address.
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isSiteLocalAddress
public boolean isSiteLocalAddress()Utility routine to check if the InetAddress is a site local address.- Overrides:
isSiteLocalAddress
in classInetAddress
- Returns:
- a
boolean
indicating if the InetAddress is a site local address; or false if address is not a site local unicast address.
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isMCGlobal
public boolean isMCGlobal()Utility routine to check if the multicast address has global scope.- Overrides:
isMCGlobal
in classInetAddress
- Returns:
- a
boolean
indicating if the address has is a multicast address of global scope, false if it is not of global scope or it is not a multicast address
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isMCNodeLocal
public boolean isMCNodeLocal()Utility routine to check if the multicast address has node scope.- Overrides:
isMCNodeLocal
in classInetAddress
- Returns:
- a
boolean
indicating if the address has is a multicast address of node-local scope, false if it is not of node-local scope or it is not a multicast address
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isMCLinkLocal
public boolean isMCLinkLocal()Utility routine to check if the multicast address has link scope.- Overrides:
isMCLinkLocal
in classInetAddress
- Returns:
- a
boolean
indicating if the address has is a multicast address of link-local scope, false if it is not of link-local scope or it is not a multicast address
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isMCSiteLocal
public boolean isMCSiteLocal()Utility routine to check if the multicast address has site scope.- Overrides:
isMCSiteLocal
in classInetAddress
- Returns:
- a
boolean
indicating if the address has is a multicast address of site-local scope, false if it is not of site-local scope or it is not a multicast address
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isMCOrgLocal
public boolean isMCOrgLocal()Utility routine to check if the multicast address has organization scope.- Overrides:
isMCOrgLocal
in classInetAddress
- Returns:
- a
boolean
indicating if the address has is a multicast address of organization-local scope, false if it is not of organization-local scope or it is not a multicast address
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getAddress
public byte[] getAddress()Returns the raw IP address of thisInetAddress
object. The result is in network byte order: the highest order byte of the address is ingetAddress()[0]
.- Overrides:
getAddress
in classInetAddress
- Returns:
- the raw IP address of this object.
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getScopeId
public int getScopeId()Returns the numeric scopeId, if this instance is associated with an interface. If no scoped_id is set, the returned value is zero.- Returns:
- the scopeId, or zero if not set.
- Since:
- 1.5
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getScopedInterface
Returns the scoped interface, if this instance was created with a scoped interface.- Returns:
- the scoped interface, or null if not set.
- Since:
- 1.5
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getHostAddress
Returns the IP address string in textual presentation. If the instance was created specifying a scope identifier then the scope id is appended to the IP address preceded by a "%" (per-cent) character. This can be either a numeric value or a string, depending on which was used to create the instance.- Overrides:
getHostAddress
in classInetAddress
- Returns:
- the raw IP address in a string format.
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hashCode
public int hashCode()Returns a hashcode for this IP address.- Overrides:
hashCode
in classInetAddress
- Returns:
- a hash code value for this IP address.
- See Also:
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equals
Compares this object against the specified object. The result istrue
if and only if the argument is notnull
and it represents the same IP address as this object.Two instances of
InetAddress
represent the same IP address if the length of the byte arrays returned bygetAddress
is the same for both, and each of the array components is the same for the byte arrays.- Overrides:
equals
in classInetAddress
- Parameters:
obj
- the object to compare against.- Returns:
true
if the objects are the same;false
otherwise.- See Also:
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isIPv4CompatibleAddress
public boolean isIPv4CompatibleAddress()Utility routine to check if the InetAddress is an IPv4 compatible IPv6 address.- Returns:
- a
boolean
indicating if the InetAddress is an IPv4 compatible IPv6 address; or false if address is IPv4 address.
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