Network utilities (OMNETUTIL)

The OMNETUTIL library is a set of OmniMark functions that provides functions for:

  • obtaining IP adresses and host names, and
  • manipulating network-ordered binary numbers.

Some network applications send or receive messages that contain numbers in binary form. Computers often represent numbers in binary form as 32-bit values. 32-bit numbers consist of 4 bytes or octets. Different kinds of computers may put these bytes in different orders. When a 32-bit number is transmitted from one computer to another (usually as part of a larger message), both computers must agree on the order of the bytes.

Network ordering is a standard way of ordering the bytes in a 32-bit binary number. It means that the first byte will be the most significant (or highest order) byte of the number, and the last will be the least significant (or lowest order) byte. (To convert integers to and from the native binary format, see the b format command and the binary operator.)

Usage Note

To use OMNETUTIL, you must import it into your program using an import declaration such as:

  import "omnetutil.xmd" prefixed by netutil.