Table of Contents for

MySQL in a Nutshell, 2nd Edition

This function converts an Internet Protocol (IP) address in dot-quad notation to its numeric equivalent. The function INET_NTOA() can be used to reverse the results. Here is an example:

SELECT INET_ATON('12.127.17.72')
AS 'AT&T';

+-----------+
| AT&T      |
+-----------+
| 209654088 |
+-----------+

This function is useful in sorting IP addresses that lexically might not sort properly. For instance, an address of 10.0.11.1 would come after 10.0.1.1 and before 10.0.2.1 under normal sort conditions in an ORDER BY clause.