[c] Integer to IP Address - C

I'm preparing for a quiz, and I have a strong suspicion I may be tasked with implementing such a function. Basically, given an IP address in network notation, how can we get that from a 32 bit integer into a string in it's dotted decimal notation (something like 155.247.182.83)...? Obviously we can't be using any type of inet functions either...I'm stumped!

From string to int and back

const char * s_ip = "192.168.0.5";
unsigned int ip;
unsigned char * c_ip = (unsigned char *)&ip;
sscanf(s_ip, "%hhu.%hhu.%hhu.%hhu", &c_ip[3], &c_ip[2], &c_ip[1], &c_ip[0]);
printf("%u.%u.%u.%u", ((ip & 0xff000000) >> 24), ((ip & 0x00ff0000) >> 16), ((ip & 0x0000ff00) >> 8), (ip & 0x000000ff));

%hhu instructs sscanf to read into unsigned char pointer; (Reading small int with scanf)

inet_ntoa from glibc

char *
inet_ntoa (struct in_addr in)
{
unsigned char *bytes = (unsigned char *) ∈
__snprintf (buffer, sizeof (buffer), "%d.%d.%d.%d",
bytes[0], bytes[1], bytes[2], bytes[3]);
return buffer;
}

This is what I would do if passed a string buffer to fill and I knew the buffer was big enough (ie at least 16 characters long):

sprintf(buffer, "%d.%d.%d.%d",
  (ip >> 24) & 0xFF,
  (ip >> 16) & 0xFF,
  (ip >>  8) & 0xFF,
  (ip      ) & 0xFF);

This would be slightly faster than creating a byte array first, and I think it is more readable. I would normally use snprintf, but IP addresses can't be more than 16 characters long including the terminating null.

Alternatively if I was asked for a function returning a char*:

char* IPAddressToString(int ip)
{
  char[] result = new char[16];

  sprintf(result, "%d.%d.%d.%d",
    (ip >> 24) & 0xFF,
    (ip >> 16) & 0xFF,
    (ip >>  8) & 0xFF,
    (ip      ) & 0xFF);

  return result;
}

void ul2chardec(char*pcIP, unsigned long ulIPN){
int i; int k=0; char c0, c1;
for (i = 0; i<4; i++){
    c0 = ((((ulIPN & (0xff << ((3 - i) * 8))) >> ((3 - i) * 8))) / 100) + 0x30;
    if (c0 != '0'){ *(pcIP + k) = c0; k++; }
    c1 = (((((ulIPN & (0xff << ((3 - i) * 8))) >> ((3 - i) * 8))) % 100) / 10) + 0x30;
    if (!(c1 =='0' && c0=='0')){ *(pcIP + k) = c1; k++; }
    *(pcIP +k) = (((((ulIPN & (0xff << ((3 - i) * 8)))) >> ((3 - i) * 8))) % 10) + 0x30;
    k++;
    if (i<3){ *(pcIP + k) = '.'; k++;}
}
*(pcIP + k) = 0; // pcIP should be x10 bytes

}

You actually can use an inet function. Observe.

main.c:

#include <arpa/inet.h>

main() {
    uint32_t ip = 2110443574;
    struct in_addr ip_addr;
    ip_addr.s_addr = ip;
    printf("The IP address is %s\n", inet_ntoa(ip_addr));
}

The results of gcc main.c -ansi; ./a.out is

The IP address is 54.208.202.125

Note that a commenter said this does not work on Windows.

Hint: break up the 32-bit integer to 4 8-bit integers, and print them out.

Something along the lines of this (not compiled, YMMV):

int i = 0xDEADBEEF; // some 32-bit integer
printf("%i.%i.%i.%i",
          (i >> 24) & 0xFF,
          (i >> 16) & 0xFF,
          (i >> 8) & 0xFF,
          i & 0xFF);

My alternative solution with subtraction :)

void convert( unsigned int addr )
{    
unsigned int num[OCTET], 
            next_addr[OCTET];

int bits = 8;
unsigned int shift_bits;
int i;

next_addr[0] = addr; 
shift_bits -= bits;  
num[0] = next_addr[0] >> shift_bits;

for ( i = 0; i < OCTET-1; i ++ )
{       
    next_addr[i + 1] = next_addr[i] - ( num[i] << shift_bits ); // next subaddr
    shift_bits -= bits; // next shift
    num[i + 1] = next_addr[i + 1] >> shift_bits; // octet
}

printf( "%d.%d.%d.%d\n", num[0], num[1], num[2], num[3] );
}

Another approach:

union IP {
    unsigned int ip;
    struct {
      unsigned char d;
      unsigned char c;
      unsigned char b;
      unsigned char a;
    } ip2;
};

...
char  ips[20];
IP ip;
ip.ip = 0xAABBCCDD;

sprintf(ips, "%x.%x.%x.%x", ip.ip2.a, ip.ip2.b, ip.ip2.c, ip.ip2.d);
printf("%s\n", ips);

#include "stdio.h"

void print_ip(int ip) {
   unsigned char bytes[4];
   int i;
   for(i=0; i<4; i++) {
      bytes[i] = (ip >> i*8) & 0xFF;
   }
   printf("%d.%d.%d.%d\n", bytes[3], bytes[2], bytes[1], bytes[0]);
}

int main() {
   int ip = 0xDEADBEEF;
   print_ip(ip);   
}