---
name: "aton"
section: "3abz"
platform: "linux"
package: "libabz0-dev"
version: "0.5.1"
release: "Debian 3.1 (Sarge)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/aton"
---

# aton(3abz)

convert a string to a network structure.

## NAME

aton - convert a string to a network structure.

## LIBRARIES

Abz Library (-labz), Debug Library (-ldebug)

## SYNOPSIS

```
#include <abz/aton.h>

int aton(struct network *net, const char *str);
```

## DESCRIPTION

The **aton()** function converts a string to a network structure which is defined in *\<abz/aton.h\>* as follows:

```
struct network
{
    uint32_t address;
    uint32_t netmask;
};
```

Both the *address* and *netmask* fields are stored in network byte order.

The network string should be either a valid ip-address, network and CIDR mask, or a valid (resolvable) hostname.

## RETURN VALUE

The **aton()** function returns 0 if successful or -1 if the string is not a valid network.

## NOTES

None of the libabz routines are thread-safe. I'm not planning to change this either! For more information, please see http://threading.2038bug.com/

If the library was compiled without the GETHOSTBYNAME flag, only the ip-address and network functionality will be available.

At the time of writing, the glibc library gethostbyname() function had a bug which caused it to resolve some invalid hostnames. In order to detect those cases, the **aton()** function also does a reverse lookup using gethostbyaddr() to see if the domain really exist.

## AUTHOR

Written by Abraham vd Merwe \<abz@blio.com\>