rangetosubnet(3)

rangetosubnet3

Convert address range to subnet

Usage

#include <freeswan.h>

const char *rangetosubnet(const ip_address *start, const ip_address *stop, ip_subnet *dst);

Overview

Rangetosubnet accepts two IP addresses which define an address range, from start to stop inclusive, and converts this to a subnet if possible. The addresses must both be IPv4 or both be IPv6, and the address family of the resulting subnet is the same.

Rangetosubnet returns NULL for success and a pointer to a string-literal error message for failure; see DIAGNOSTICS.

Diagnostics

Fatal errors in rangetosubnet are: mixed address families; unknown address family; start and stop do not define a subnet.

History

Written for the FreeS/WAN project by Henry Spencer.

Bugs

The restriction of error reports to literal strings (so that callers don't need to worry about freeing them or copying them) does limit the precision of error reporting.

The error-reporting convention lends itself to slightly obscure code, because many readers will not think of NULL as signifying success. A good way to make it clearer is to write something like:

const char *error;

error = rangetosubnet( /* ... */ );
if (error != NULL) {
        /* something went wrong */

From strongswan 4.2.4-5+lenny3 in Debian 5.0 (Lenny). Parsed by carta from the page's man source.