Convert a string (without separators) into IPV6 address representation

Question

I'm trying to get the local IPV6 address by reading /proc/net/if_inet6. But the address there is without any colons like: 000000000000000000000abc00070def.

So I'm adding colons (:) at multiple places like this:

str6 = "000000000000000000000abc00070def"
i = 4
addr = str6[:i]
while i < len(str6):
    addr += ":" + str6[i:i+4]
    i += 4
print addr     # output: 0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0abc:0007:0def

For a normal string this is working fine.

But since the string is a IPV6 address, so wondering is there a better way to do it? (Tried with ipaddress module but I don't think it supports without colons.)

Answer 1

ipaddress.IPv6Address can also construct an IPv6 address from a "valid" integer:

import ipaddress

ipv6_addr = ipaddress.ip_address(int('000000000000000000000abc00070def', 16))
print(ipv6_addr)

prints:

::abc:7:def

The long form of the address representation (exploded):

print(ipv6_addr.exploded)

prints:

0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0abc:0007:0def