Re: [HACKERS] Summary: what to do about INET/CIDR

[Tom Lane]

BTW, does it strike anyone else as peculiar that the host(),
broadcast(), network(), and netmask() functions yield results
of type text, rather than type inet?  Seems like it'd be considerably
more useful if they returned values of type inet with masklen = 32
(except for network(), which would keep the original masklen while
coercing bits to its right to 0).

Given the current proposal that inet_out should always display all 4
octets, and the existing fact that inet_out suppresses display of
a /32 netmask, the textual display of SELECT host(...) etc would
remain the same as it is now.  But AFAICS you could do more with
an inet-type result value, like say compare it to other inet or cidr
values ...

Comments?  Why was it done this way, anyway?

                        regards, tom lane