Datatype for storing ip address in SQL Server

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What datatype should I choose for storing an IP Address in a SQL Server?

By selecting the right datatype would it be easy enough to filter by IP address then?

sql-server-2005 ip-address tsql sql-server types
12 Answers

The following answer is based on answers by M. Turnhout and Jerry Birchler to this question but with the following improvements:

  • Replaced the use of undocumented functions (sys.fn_varbintohexsubstring, fn_varbintohexstr) with CONVERT() for binary styles
  • Replaced XML "hacks" ( CAST('' as xml).value('xs:hexBinary()) ) with CONVERT() for binary styles
  • Fixed bug in Jerry Birchler's implementation of fn_ConvertIpAddressToBinary (as pointed out by C.Plock)
  • Add minor syntax sugar

The code has been tested in SQL Server 2014 and SQL Server 2016 (see test cases at the end)

IPAddressVarbinaryToString

Converts 4 bytes values to IPV4 and 16 byte values to IPV6 string representations. Note that this function does not shorten addresses.

ALTER FUNCTION dbo.IPAddressVarbinaryToString
(
    @varbinaryValue VARBINARY( 16 )
)
RETURNS VARCHAR(39)
AS
BEGIN
    IF @varbinaryValue IS NULL
        RETURN NULL;
    ELSE IF DATALENGTH( @varbinaryValue ) = 4
        RETURN 
            CONVERT( VARCHAR(3), CONVERT(TINYINT, SUBSTRING( @varbinaryValue, 1, 1 ))) + '.' +
            CONVERT( VARCHAR(3), CONVERT(TINYINT, SUBSTRING( @varbinaryValue, 2, 1 ))) + '.' +
            CONVERT( VARCHAR(3), CONVERT(TINYINT, SUBSTRING( @varbinaryValue, 3, 1 ))) + '.' +
            CONVERT( VARCHAR(3), CONVERT(TINYINT, SUBSTRING( @varbinaryValue, 4, 1 )));
    ELSE IF DATALENGTH( @varbinaryValue ) = 16
        RETURN 
            CONVERT( VARCHAR(4), SUBSTRING( @varbinaryValue,  1, 2 ), 2 ) + ':' +
            CONVERT( VARCHAR(4), SUBSTRING( @varbinaryValue,  3, 2 ), 2 ) + ':' +
            CONVERT( VARCHAR(4), SUBSTRING( @varbinaryValue,  5, 2 ), 2 ) + ':' +
            CONVERT( VARCHAR(4), SUBSTRING( @varbinaryValue,  7, 2 ), 2 ) + ':' +
            CONVERT( VARCHAR(4), SUBSTRING( @varbinaryValue,  9, 2 ), 2 ) + ':' +
            CONVERT( VARCHAR(4), SUBSTRING( @varbinaryValue, 11, 2 ), 2 ) + ':' +
            CONVERT( VARCHAR(4), SUBSTRING( @varbinaryValue, 13, 2 ), 2 ) + ':' +
            CONVERT( VARCHAR(4), SUBSTRING( @varbinaryValue, 15, 2 ), 2 );

    RETURN 'Invalid';
END

Test Cases:

SELECT dbo.IPAddressVarbinaryToString(0x00000000000000000000000000000000) -- 0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000 (no address shortening)
SELECT dbo.IPAddressVarbinaryToString(0x00010002000300400500060070000089) -- 0001:0002:0003:0040:0500:0600:7000:0089
SELECT dbo.IPAddressVarbinaryToString(0xC0A80148) -- 255.168.1.72
SELECT dbo.IPAddressVarbinaryToString(0x7F000001) -- 127.0.0.1 (no address shortening)
SELECT dbo.IPAddressVarbinaryToString(NULL) -- NULL

IPAddressStringToVarbinary

Converts IPV4 and IPV6 string representations to 4 byte and 16 bytes binary values respectively. Note that this function is able to parse most (all of the commonly used) of shorthand address representations (e.g. 127...1 and 2001:db8::1319:370:7348). To force this function to always return 16 byte binary values uncomment leading 0s concatenation at the end of the function.

ALTER FUNCTION [dbo].[IPAddressStringToVarbinary]
(
    @IPAddress VARCHAR( 39 )
)
RETURNS VARBINARY(16) AS
BEGIN

IF @ipAddress IS NULL
    RETURN NULL;

DECLARE @bytes VARBINARY(16), @token VARCHAR(4),
    @vbytes VARBINARY(16) = 0x, @vbzone VARBINARY(2),
    @tIPAddress VARCHAR( 40 ),
    @colIndex TINYINT,
    @delim CHAR(1) = '.',
    @prevColIndex TINYINT = 0,
    @parts TINYINT = 0, @limit TINYINT = 4;

-- Get position if IPV4 delimiter
SET @colIndex = CHARINDEX( @delim, @ipAddress );

-- If not IPV4, then assume IPV6
IF @colIndex = 0
BEGIN
    SELECT @delim = ':', @limit = 8, @colIndex = CHARINDEX( @delim, @ipAddress );

    -- Get number of parts (delimiters)
    WHILE @colIndex > 0
        SELECT @parts += 1, @colIndex = CHARINDEX( @delim, @ipAddress, @colIndex + 1 );

    SET @colIndex = CHARINDEX( @delim, @ipAddress );

    IF @colIndex = 0
        RETURN NULL;
END

-- Add trailing delimiter (need new variable of larger size)
SET @tIPAddress = @IPAddress + @delim;

WHILE @colIndex > 0
BEGIN
    SET @token = SUBSTRING( @tIPAddress, @prevColIndex + 1, @Colindex - @prevColIndex - 1 );

    IF @delim = ':'
    BEGIN
        SELECT @vbzone = CONVERT( VARBINARY(2), RIGHT( '0000' + @token, 4 ), 2 ), @vbytes += @vbzone;

        -- Handles consecutive sections of zeros representation rule (i.e. ::)(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv6#Address_representation)
        IF @token = ''
            WHILE @parts + 1 < @limit
                SELECT @vbytes += @vbzone, @parts += 1;
    END
    ELSE
    BEGIN
        SELECT @vbzone = CONVERT( VARBINARY(1), CONVERT( TINYINT, @token )), @vbytes += @vbzone
    END

    SELECT @prevColIndex = @colIndex, @colIndex = CHARINDEX( @delim, @tIPAddress, @colIndex + 1 ) 
END

SET @bytes =
    CASE @delim
        WHEN ':' THEN @vbytes
        ELSE /*0x000000000000000000000000 +*/ @vbytes -- Return IPV4 addresses as 4 byte binary (uncomment leading 0s section to force 16 byte binary)
    END 

RETURN @bytes

END

Test Cases

Valid cases

SELECT dbo.IPAddressStringToVarbinary( '0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0001' ) -- 0x0000000000000000000000000001 (check bug fix)
SELECT dbo.IPAddressStringToVarbinary( '0001:0002:0003:0040:0500:0600:7000:0089' ) -- 0x00010002000300400500060070000089
SELECT dbo.IPAddressStringToVarbinary( '2001:db8:85a3:8d3:1319::370:7348' )     -- 0x20010DB885A308D31319000003707348 (check short hand)
SELECT dbo.IPAddressStringToVarbinary( '2001:db8:85a3:8d3:1319:0000:370:7348' ) -- 0x20010DB885A308D31319000003707348
SELECT dbo.IPAddressStringToVarbinary( '192.168.1.72' ) -- 0xC0A80148
SELECT dbo.IPAddressStringToVarbinary( '127...1' ) -- 0x7F000001 (check short hand)
SELECT dbo.IPAddressStringToVarbinary( NULL ) -- NULL
SELECT dbo.IPAddressStringToVarbinary( '' ) -- NULL
-- Check that conversions return original address
SELECT dbo.IPAddressVarbinaryToString( dbo.IPAddressStringToVarbinary( '0001:0002:0003:0040:0500:0600:7000:0089' )) -- '0001:0002:0003:0040:0500:0600:7000:0089' 
SELECT dbo.IPAddressVarbinaryToString( dbo.IPAddressStringToVarbinary( '127...1' )) -- 127.0.0.1
SELECT dbo.IPAddressVarbinaryToString( dbo.IPAddressStringToVarbinary( '192.168.1.72' )) -- 192.168.1.72
SELECT dbo.IPAddressVarbinaryToString( dbo.IPAddressStringToVarbinary( '2001:db8:85a3:8d3:1319::370:7348' ))     -- 2001:0db8:85a3:08d3:1319:0000:0370:7348
SELECT dbo.IPAddressVarbinaryToString( dbo.IPAddressStringToVarbinary( '2001:db8:85a3:8d3:1314:0000:370:7348' )) -- 2001:0db8:85a3:08d3:1319:0000:0370:7348
SELECT dbo.IPAddressVarbinaryToString( dbo.IPAddressStringToVarbinary( '2001:db8:85a3:8d3::370:7348' )) -- 2001:0DB8:85A3:08D3:0000:0000:0370:7348
-- This is technically an invalid IPV6 (according to Wikipedia) but it parses correctly
SELECT dbo.IPAddressVarbinaryToString( dbo.IPAddressStringToVarbinary( '2001:db8::1319::370:7348' )) -- 2001:0DB8:0000:0000:1319:0000:0370:7348

Invalid cases

SELECT dbo.IPAddressVarbinaryToString( dbo.IPAddressStringToVarbinary( '2001:db8::1319::7348' )) -- 2001:0DB8:0000:0000:0000:1319:0000:7348 (ambiguous address)
SELECT dbo.IPAddressStringToVarbinary( '127.1' ) -- 127.0.0.1 (not supported short-hand)
SELECT dbo.IPAddressVarbinaryToString( dbo.IPAddressStringToVarbinary( '127.1' )) -- 127.0.0.1 (not supported short-hand)
SELECT dbo.IPAddressStringToVarbinary( '0300.0000.0002.0353' ) -- octal byte values
SELECT dbo.IPAddressStringToVarbinary( '0xC0.0x00.0x02.0xEB' ) -- hex values
SELECT dbo.IPAddressStringToVarbinary( 'C0.00.02.EB' ) -- hex values
user_63052940

We do a lot of work where we need to figure out which IP's are within certain subnets. I've found that the simplest and most reliable way to do this is:

  1. Add a field to each table called IPInteger (bigint) (when invalid, set IP= '0.0.0.0')
  2. For smaller tables, I use a trigger that updates IPInteger on change
  3. For larger tables, I use a SPROC to refresh the IPIntegers
    ALTER FUNCTION [dbo].[IP_To_INT ]
    ( 
        @IP CHAR(15) 
    ) 
    RETURNS BIGINT 
    AS 
    BEGIN 
        DECLARE @IntAns BIGINT, 
            @block1 BIGINT, 
            @block2 BIGINT, 
            @block3 BIGINT, 
            @block4 BIGINT, 
            @base BIGINT 
     
        SELECT 
            @block1 = CONVERT(BIGINT, PARSENAME(@IP, 4)), 
            @block2 = CONVERT(BIGINT, PARSENAME(@IP, 3)), 
            @block3 = CONVERT(BIGINT, PARSENAME(@IP, 2)), 
            @block4 = CONVERT(BIGINT, PARSENAME(@IP, 1)) 
     
        IF (@block1 BETWEEN 0 AND 255) 
            AND (@block2 BETWEEN 0 AND 255) 
            AND (@block3 BETWEEN 0 AND 255) 
            AND (@block4 BETWEEN 0 AND 255) 
        BEGIN      
            SET @base = CONVERT(BIGINT, @block1 * 16777216)
            SET @IntAns = @base +  
                (@block2 * 65536) +  
                (@block3 * 256) + 
                (@block4) 
        END 
        ELSE 
            SET @IntAns = -1 
        RETURN @IntAns 
    END
user_146337080
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