[Python-Dev] _socket efficiencies ideas

[Guido van Rossum]

> OK, I'll chime back in on the thread I started...  I mostly have a 
> question for Sean, since he seems to know the networking stuff well.

I'll chime in nevertheless.

> Do you know of any reason why my original proposal (which is to allows 
> IP addresses prefixed with <numeric> e.g. <numeric>127.0.0.1 to cause 
> both the AI_PASSIVE _and_ AI_NUMERIC flags to get set when resolution 
> is attempted, which basically causes parsing with not real resolution 
> at all) would break any known or plausible networking standards?

What are those flags?  Which API uses them?

I still don't understand why intercepting the all-numeric syntax isn't
good enough, and why you want a <numeric> prefix.

> The current Python socket module basically hides this part of the
> BSD socket API, and I find it quite useful to be able to suppress
> DNS activity absolutely for some addresses.  And for Guido: since
> this type of tag has already been used in Python (as <broadcast>),
> is there any reason why this solution is inelegant?

The reason I'm reluctant to add a new notation is that AFAIK it would
be unique to Python.  It's better to stick to standard notations IMO.
<broadcast> was probably a mistake, since it seems to mean the same as
0.0.0.0 (for IPv4).

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)