Efficient Storage of IP Address

[Vance M. Allen]

Greetings,

I am establishing a database for the purpose of logging access to my secure
webserver and am wanting to make the database as efficient as I can because
it will be doing a lot of work when the site goes live.

What is the most efficient way in a MySQL table to store remote IP
addresses? What data type should I use? Should I just go with a basic
VARCHAR(15) to allow for 4 sets of 3 digits with 3 decimal separators, or is
there a better way?

Thanks,

Vance

[Chris Hope]

Vance M. Allen wrote:

I am establishing a database for the purpose of logging access to my
secure webserver and am wanting to make the database as efficient as I
can because it will be doing a lot of work when the site goes live.

What is the most efficient way in a MySQL table to store remote IP
addresses? What data type should I use? Should I just go with a
basic VARCHAR(15) to allow for 4 sets of 3 digits with 3 decimal
separators, or is there a better way?

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/mi...functions.html

Have a look at INET_ATON & INET_NTOA

--
Chris Hope | www.electrictoolbox.com | www.linuxcdmall.com

[Gordon Burditt]

>I am establishing a database for the purpose of logging access to my secure

webserver and am wanting to make the database as efficient as I can because
it will be doing a lot of work when the site goes live.

What is the most efficient way in a MySQL table to store remote IP
addresses?
Define "efficient" for this application. Is "efficient" = "uses the least
disk space"? Or is "efficient" = "uses the least CPU time"?
What data type should I use? Should I just go with a basic
VARCHAR(15) to allow for 4 sets of 3 digits with 3 decimal separators, or is
there a better way?

You could use inet_ntoa() and inet_aton(). These save disk space.
They might possibly save disk i/o due to a smaller index or smaller
data. However, they use CPU time. How many times will you need to
convert these? Do you need to do subnet masking?

Gordon L. Burditt