ip2long
    (PHP 4 )
ip2long -- 
      Converts a string containing an (IPv4) Internet Protocol dotted address
      into a proper address.
    
Description
int 
ip2long ( string ip_address)
     The function ip2long() generates an IPv4 Internet
     network address from its Internet standard format (dotted string)
     representation.
     
| Example 1. ip2long() Example | <?php
$ip = gethostbyname("www.example.com");
$out = "The following URLs are equivalent:<br>\n";
$out .= "http://www.example.com/, http://".$ip."/, and http://".sprintf("%u",ip2long($ip))."/<br>\n";
echo $out;
?> | 
 | 
     Note: 
       Because PHP's integer type is signed, and many IP addresses will
       result in negative integers, you need to use the "%u" formatter of
       sprintf() or printf() to get
       the string representation of the unsigned IP address.
      
     This second example shows how to print a converted address with the
     
printf() function :
     
| Example 2. Displaying an IP address | <?php
$ip = gethostbyname("www.example.com");
printf("%u\n", ip2long($ip));
echo $out;
?> | 
 | 
    
     See also: long2ip()