htons (3p) - Linux Manuals

htons: convert values between host and network

PROLOG

This manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual. The Linux implementation of this interface may differ (consult the corresponding Linux manual page for details of Linux behavior), or the interface may not be implemented on Linux.

NAME

htonl, htons, ntohl, ntohs - convert values between host and network byte order

SYNOPSIS

#include <arpa/inet.h>

uint32_t htonl(uint32_t hostlong);
uint16_t htons(uint16_t hostshort);
uint32_t ntohl(uint32_t netlong);
uint16_t ntohs(uint16_t netshort);

DESCRIPTION

These functions shall convert 16-bit and 32-bit quantities between network byte order and host byte order.

On some implementations, these functions are defined as macros.

The uint32_t and uint16_t types are defined in <inttypes.h>.

RETURN VALUE

The htonl() and htons() functions shall return the argument value converted from host to network byte order.

The ntohl() and ntohs() functions shall return the argument value converted from network to host byte order.

ERRORS

No errors are defined.

The following sections are informative.

EXAMPLES

None.

APPLICATION USAGE

These functions are most often used in conjunction with IPv4 addresses and ports as returned by gethostent() and getservent().

RATIONALE

None.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

None.

COPYRIGHT

Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form from IEEE Std 1003.1, 2003 Edition, Standard for Information Technology -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 6, Copyright (C) 2001-2003 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open Group. In the event of any discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard is the referee document. The original Standard can be obtained online at http://www.opengroup.org/unix/online.html .