Bad IP address on LAN (160.80.8.013 for ex)

[CHM1]

On my LAN I have a station with IP Address 160.80.8.13...
On a UNIX server in /etc/hosts I have a line :
ST01 160.80.8.013
When form this server I type
ping ST01
I get a message saying me "pinging 160.80.8.11" !

I thought that left zeros where not significant in dotted decimal IP addresses, but obviously when I type 013 the address is converted in pseudo octal form (1*8 + 3 = 11).
Could anybody give me the explanation (I can't find it the litterature about dotted decimal IP address)?

More curious : if the address typed is 160.80.8.019, I am trying to ping 160.80.8.17 (1*8+9 , so it's not really Octal because 9 is not an octal digit.

I get the same when I try to ping with DOS command, so I think this is always implemented the same on different UNIX or other OS.

Thanks

 

[welshguy]

CHM1,

I thought this was rubbish - until I tried it !
On Win2000 machine edited the hosts files with same result as you.

I've got some heavy duty TCP/IP texts at home I'll look this up when get chance.

Very interesting........

Cheers

 

[sobak]

Hey guy's I have no idea on this one (that's why I left it alone) let me know what you find out, this will be an interesting one....

david e
*end users are just like computers, some you can work with...others just need a simple reBOOTing to fix their problems.*

 

[welshguy]

Guys,

It appears that putting a leading zero does mean the address is interpreted as an Octal value.

This link sounds correct... I'm still going to look it up though

http://groups.google.co.uk/groups?h...+address&meta=group%3Dcomp.protocols.tcp-ip.*

Well you learn something new everyday !

Cheers

 

[petewhite]

Well I'm amazed by this, never had a clue but I'll store it away for a rainy day!

 

[lsunil]

Hi Guys,
It works properly on OS/2.
Interprete properly and not like octal...
I guess its problem with NT... I don't know....
Its interesting

 

[bierhunter]

Wow....I've never heard of this before either. I tried it on my Win2k PC and pinged 127.0.0.013. It said pinging 127.0.0.11. That's funny.

You're right...we learn something new everyday. I'm passing this one around.

 

[CHM1]

Thanks for all your posts !
I think the problem was not very important, but it was a little bit teasing me. And it took me an afternoon with my friend to see what was really happening : on his PC he typed 013 and on my PC I typed 13; never seeing the zero we determined erroneously his PC had a problem but which one ?...
PS : I don't know C Language, but i think i'd better learn it...