Storing IP Addresses as Numbers in Your Database

IP addresses are usually stored as strings in databases, but there are some advantages to storing them as numbers instead.

• Numbers are more compact 🗂️
  A string representation of an IP address can take up to 15 characters, while a number representation only takes up 4 bytes. This can save significant space in your database, especially if you're storing a large number of IP addresses.

• Numbers are faster to compare 🚀
  When you're searching for a specific IP address in your database, it's much faster to compare numbers than strings. This can improve the performance of your database queries.

• Numbers are more machine-friendly 🤖
  Algorithms and scripts can easily process numbers, making it easier to work with IP addresses in your database.

So, how do you store IP addresses as numbers in your database? It's actually pretty simple. Most databases have built-in functions for converting strings to numbers and vice versa. For example, in MySQL, you can use the INET_ATON() function to convert a string to an IP address number, and the INET_NTOA() function to convert an IP address number to a string.

Here's an example of how you would store an IP address as a number in MySQL:

INSERT INTO `ip_addresses` ( `ip_address` ) VALUES (INET_ATON('192.168.1.1'));

This will insert the IP address 192.168.1.1 into the ip_addresses table as a number.

To retrieve the IP address as a string, you can use the INET_NTOA() function:

SELECT INET_NTOA(ip_address) FROM ip_addresses WHERE ip_address = INET_ATON('192.168.1.1');

This will return the string 192.168.1.1.

Storing IP addresses as numbers in your database can have some advantages in terms of space, performance, and flexibility. If you're not already storing your IP addresses as numbers, it's something to consider.

Bonus Tip

If you're storing both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses in your database, you can use the INET6_ATON() function to convert IPv6 addresses to numbers.

I hope this blog post was helpful! Let me know if you have any questions. 🙋🏽‍♂️