IPAddressFamily Enumeration

The IPAddressFamily enumeration represents the address families that can be used for IP addressing. This enumeration is used by the System.Net.Sockets namespace to specify the type of IP addresses that network protocols will use.

Namespace:

System.Net

Syntax:

public enum IPAddressFamily

Members:

The following members are defined for the IPAddressFamily enumeration:

Remarks:

The IPAddressFamily enumeration is fundamental to network programming in .NET. When creating network sockets or working with IP addresses, you often need to specify whether you are dealing with IPv4 or IPv6.

• Use InterNetwork when working with IPv4 addresses (e.g., 192.168.1.1).
• Use InterNetworkV6 when working with IPv6 addresses (e.g., 2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334).
• The Unknown value is typically used when the address family cannot be determined or is not applicable.

Example:

The following C# code snippet demonstrates how to check the address family of an IP address:

using System;
using System.Net;

public class IPAddressFamilyExample
{
    public static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        // Example IPv4 address
        IPAddress ipv4Address = IPAddress.Parse("192.168.1.100");
        Console.WriteLine($"Address: {ipv4Address}");
        Console.WriteLine($"Family: {ipv4Address.AddressFamily}"); // Output: InterNetwork

        Console.WriteLine();

        // Example IPv6 address
        IPAddress ipv6Address = IPAddress.Parse("2001:db8::1");
        Console.WriteLine($"Address: {ipv6Address}");
        Console.WriteLine($"Family: {ipv6Address.AddressFamily}"); // Output: InterNetworkV6

        Console.WriteLine();

        // Checking a specific family
        if (ipv4Address.AddressFamily == IPAddressFamily.InterNetwork)
        {
            Console.WriteLine("This is an IPv4 address.");
        }

        if (ipv6Address.AddressFamily == IPAddressFamily.InterNetworkV6)
        {
            Console.WriteLine("This is an IPv6 address.");
        }
    }
}

See Also:

• IPAddress Class
• System.Net.Sockets Namespace