Question

function ip_address_to_number($IPaddress) { 
     if(!$IPaddress) {
      return false;
     } else {
      $ips = split('\.',$IPaddress);
      return($ips[3] + $ips[2]*256 + $ips[1]*65536 + $ips[0]*16777216);
     }
}

that function executes the same code as the php bundled function ip2long. however, when i print these 2 values, i get 2 different returns. why? (im using php 5.2.10 on a wamp environment).

ip2long('200.117.248.17'); //returns **-931792879**

ip_address_to_number('200.117.248.17'); // returns **3363174417**

Applied and continued here:
Showing my country based on my IP, mysql optimized

Answer 1

glopes@nebm:~$ php -r "printf('%u', -931792879);"
3363174417

There you go. My guess is that you are on a system with 32-bit ints and your ip_address_to_number is actually returning a float.

You see, with 32-bit ints, your maximum positive integer is (2^31) - 1 = 2 147 483 647, so the integer wraps around.

If you want to mimic the behaviour of the PHP function, do:

function ip_address_to_number($IPaddress) { 
 if(!$IPaddress) {
  return false;
 } else {
  $ips = split('\.',$IPaddress);
  return($ips[3] | $ips[2] << 8 | $ips[1] << 16 | $ips[0] << 24);
 }
}

(by the way, split has been deprecated)