inet_ntoa for ipv6 in perl

Question

I am new to perl and I am trying to convert an ipv6 address in network format to the ascii string format. I could do this for ipv4 address using the "inet_ntoa" function in the "Socket" module. How to do this for ipv6 address without installing any new modules?

Answer 1

Use inet_ntop as recommended by perldoc Socket:

$string = inet_ntoa $ip_address

   Takes a packed binary address structure such as returned by
   unpack_sockaddr_in() (or a v-string representing the four octets of the
   IPv4 address in network order) and translates it into a string of the form
   "d.d.d.d" where the "d"s are numbers less than 256 (the normal
   human-readable four dotted number notation for Internet addresses).

   This IPv4-only function is provided largely for legacy reasons.
   Newly-written code should use getnameinfo() or inet_ntop() instead for
   IPv6 support.

$string = inet_ntop $family, $address

   Takes an address family and a packed binary address structure and
   translates it into a human-readable textual representation of the address;
   typically in "d.d.d.d" form for "AF_INET" or "hhhh:hhhh::hhhh" form for
   "AF_INET6".
   See also getnameinfo() for a more powerful and flexible function to turn
   socket addresses into human-readable textual representations.