Representing IPv4/IPv6 addresses in Oracle

Question

In Oracle, what is the appropriate data type or technique for representing network addresses, which addresses may be IPv4 or IPv6?

Background: I\'m converting a tab

Answer 1

@Alain Pannetier (because I can't comment yet): The ANSI INTEGER datatype maps to NUMBER(38) in Oracle according to http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/B19306_01/server.102/b14200/sql_elements001.htm#i54335. Below the table you find the info that NUMBER only provides 126bit binary precision which is not enought for a 128bit IPv6 address. The maximum value might store fine but there will be addresses that are rouned to the next lower one.

The internal numeric format is ROUND((length(p)+s)/2))+1 (http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/B19306_01/server.102/b14220/datatype.htm#i16209).

Update: After fiddling around with the issue again I've now found a solution that allows high performance querying of networks that contain an IPv6 address: store the IPv6 addresses and subnet masks in RAW(16) columns and compare them using UTL_RAW.BIT_AND:

SELECT name, DECODE(UTL_RAW.BIT_AND('20010DB8000000000000000000000001', ipv6_mask), ipv6_net, 1, 0)
FROM ip_net
WHERE ipv6_net IS NOT NULL;