etf.org/rfc/rfc790.txt">
RFC 790: Assigned Numbers,
RFC 1918: Address Allocation for Private Internets, and
RFC 2365: Administratively Scoped IP Multicast Textual representation of IPv4 address used as input to methods takes one of the following forms:
When four parts are specified, each is interpreted as a byte of data and assigned, from left to right, to the four bytes of an IPv4 address.
When a three part address is specified, the last part is interpreted as a 16-bit quantity and placed in the right most two bytes of the network address. This makes the three part address format convenient for specifying Class B net- work addresses as 128.net.host.
When a two part address is supplied, the last part is interpreted as a 24-bit quantity and placed in the right most three bytes of the network address. This makes the two part address format convenient for specifying Class A network addresses as net.host.
When only one part is given, the value is stored directly in the network address without any byte rearrangement.
For methods that return a textual representation as output value, the first form, i.e. a dotted-quad string, is used.
The Scope of a Multicast Address
Historically the IPv4 TTL field in the IP header has doubled as a multicast scope field: a TTL of 0 means node-local, 1 means link-local, up through 32 means site-local, up through 64 means region-local, up through 128 means continent-local, and up through 255 are global. However, the administrative scoping is preferred. Please refer to
RFC 2365: Administratively Scoped IP Multicast
@since 1.4