NAME
htonl, htons,
ntohl, ntohs —
convert values between host and network
byte order
SYNOPSIS
#include
<sys/param.h>
u_long
htonl(u_long
hostlong);
u_short
htons(u_short
hostshort);
u_long
ntohl(u_long
netlong);
u_short
ntohs(u_short
netshort);
DESCRIPTION
These routines convert 16 and 32 bit quantities between network byte order and host byte order. On machines which have a byte order which is the same as the network order, routines are defined as null macros.These routines are most often used in conjunction with Internet addresses and ports as returned by gethostbyname(3) and getservent(3).
SEE ALSO
HISTORY
The byteorder functions appeared in
4.2BSD.
BUGS
On the VAX bytes are handled backwards from most everyone else in the world. This is not expected to be fixed in the near future.