docs/188786: Bug in inet(3) man page (inet_aton())

[Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)]

On Sat, May 17, 2014 at 6:08 AM,  <bjk at freebsd.org> wrote:
> Synopsis: Bug in inet(3) man page (inet_aton())
>
> State-Changed-From-To: open->closed
> State-Changed-By: bjk
> State-Changed-When: Sat May 17 04:06:45 UTC 2014
> State-Changed-Why:
> I do not believe this is a bug.
>
> The text is just referring to an IP address when it says
> "network address", and the class-A addressing scheme is just
> taking the three octets from the second component and putting
> them as the last three octets of the IPv4 address.
> In the nearby portions of this document, "network address"
> is also referring to just an IPv4 address.
>
> http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=188786

Ben,

Okay -- I see what you mean--I was focused on that one piece, and
didn't note the other uses of "network address".

I think that what makes the page a little confusing is that it uses
both terms "Internet address" and "network address" without making it
clear that they are synonymous (and thus leaving the potential for the
reader to think they are not). This might not normally be problematic,
but given that the page is also talking about the 'network' and 'host'
components of the address, there is scope for confusion. Not a big
thing, I guess, but FWIW that's the confusion that I tried to avoid in
the Linux man page by using the term "binary address"; see
http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man3/inet.3.html#DESCRIPTION

Cheers,

Michael