Representing IPv6 addresses with PHP per RFC 5952

Question

I wrote the following function in PHP to represent IPv6 addresses as short as possible:

function ipv6_compress($ip){
 // Shorten first group of zeros
 if(substr($ip, 0, 4) == 0000) $ip = substr_replace($ip, '0', 0, 4);
 // Shorten full groups of zeros
 $ip = str_replace('0000:', '0:', $ip);
 // Remove leading zeros
 $ip = preg_replace('/:0{1,3}(?=\w)/', ':', $ip);
 // Remove longest extra group of zeros per [RFC 5952](https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc5952)
 if(strpos('::') !== false) return $ip; // But don't if a :: is already present as entered
 $pos = strpos($ip, '0:0:0:0:0:0:0:');
 if($pos !== false) return $ip = substr_replace($ip, '::', $pos, 14);
 $pos = strpos($ip, '0:0:0:0:0:0:');
 if($pos !== false) return $ip = substr_replace($ip, '::', $pos, 12);
 $pos = strpos($ip, '0:0:0:0:0:');
 if($pos !== false) return $ip = substr_replace($ip, '::', $pos, 10);
 $pos = strpos($ip, '0:0:0:0:');
 if($pos !== false) return $ip = substr_replace($ip, '::', $pos, 8);
 $pos = strpos($ip, '0:0:0:');
 if($pos !== false) return substr_replace($ip, '::', $pos, 6);
 $pos = strpos($ip, '0:0:');
 if($pos !== false) return substr_replace($ip, '::', $pos, 4);
 return $ip;
}

I attempt to adhere to RFC 5952.

1. Do I violate the standard in any way?
2. Can I do anything more efficiently?

As you can probably tell, I am not concerned with validating the addresses.

• 200_success: I have rolled back Rev 7 → 6. See What should I do when someone answers my question?
• Giso Stallenberg: You could simply use inet_ntop(inet_pton($ip)); it'll give the short representation

Answer 1

You seem to adhere to the RFC from what I can tell. What I feel is missing in your code is just a little more bracing and a way to drop these repeating if-statements.

What do you think of the following for the :: replacing (pseudocode)

const $zero_chain = '0:0:0:0:0:0:0:';
// zero shortening already happened by now 
$zero_chain_copy = $zero_chain;
while (strpos($ip, '::') === false && strlen($zero_chain) >= 4) {
 $pos = strpos($ip, $zerochain);
 if ($pos !== false) {
 // early return, because no further shortenings can be applied anyways
 return $ip = substr_replace($ip, ::, $pos, strlen($zero_chain));
 }
 // cut away one '0:' to shorten the chain
 $zero_chain = substr($zerochain, 0, strlen($zero_chain) - 2);
}
return $ip; // no zero-chains at all

• Mooseman: I like the idea of this, but wouldn't it be less efficient to keep changing the chain than it is to run through the 6 if statements?
• Vogel612: I think the clarity and simplicity you gain is a net benefit. Overall string manipulations like substring are cheap by comparison. I'd use it as proposed until it's proven to be a performance issue.
• Mooseman: Implemented. :)

Answer 2

I implemented the ideas in this answer and squashed other bugs as follows:

• Some addresses such as 2001:0db8:0000:0000:0000:ff00:0042:8329 could contain ::: rather than ::.
• The loopback address (0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0001) was abbreviated to :1 rather than ::1.

Here's the code I'm using now.

function ipv6_compress($ip){
 // Shorten first group of zeros
 if(substr($ip, 0, 4) === '0000') $ip = substr_replace($ip, ':0', 0, 4);
 // Shorten full groups of zeros
 $ip = str_replace(':0000', ':0', $ip);
 // Remove leading zeros
 $ip = preg_replace('/:0{1,3}(?=\w)/', ':', $ip); //return $ip;
 // Remove longest extra group of zeros per [RFC 5952](http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5952)
 $z = ':0:0:0:0:0:0:0:'; // Set chain
 while(strpos($ip, '::') === false && strlen($z) >= 5){ // While no :: and chain still possible
 $pos = strpos($ip, $z);
 if($pos !== false){ $ip = substr_replace($ip, '::', $pos, strlen($z)); break; } // Replace chain and break
 $z = substr($z, 0, strlen($z) - 2); // cut away one '0:' to shorten the chain
 }
 if(substr($ip, 1, 1) !== ':') return ltrim($ip, ':'); // Remove initial : if not a ::
 return $ip; // return
}

• Giso Stallenberg: You could simply use inet_ntop(inet_pton($ip)); it'll give the short representation