[API Proposal]: IPAddress.IsValid

[MihaZupan]

Background and motivation

Cheaper IPAddress.TryParse(span, out _) for when you don't need the result.

API Proposal

namespace System.Net;

public partial class IPAddress
{
    public static IPAddress Parse(string ipString);
    public static IPAddress Parse(ReadOnlySpan<char> ipSpan);
    public static IPAddress Parse(ReadOnlySpan<byte> utf8Text);
    public static bool TryParse(string? ipString, out IPAddress? address);
    public static bool TryParse(ReadOnlySpan<char> ipSpan, out IPAddress? address);
    public static bool TryParse(ReadOnlySpan<byte> utf8Text, out IPAddress? result);

+   public static bool IsValid(ReadOnlySpan<char> ipSpan);
+   public static bool IsValid(ReadOnlySpan<byte> utf8Text);
}

API Usage

-if (IPAddress.TryParse(text, out _))
+if (IPAddress.IsValid(text))

We have an internal helper TargetHostNameHelper.IsValidAddress that appears to be doing exactly what IPAddress.IsValid would be:

runtime/src/libraries/Common/src/System/Net/Security/TargetHostNameHelper.cs

Line 43 in 94add2e

internal static unsafe bool IsValidAddress(string? hostname)

Alternative Designs

• Allow specifying IPv4 or IPv6 only?

Risks

No response

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[terrajobst]

Video

• We'd prefer to rename the second one because there is a constructor that takes a byte span which is expected to be the binary encoding

namespace System.Net;

public partial class IPAddress
{
    // Existing:
    // public static IPAddress Parse(string ipString);
    // public static IPAddress Parse(ReadOnlySpan<char> ipSpan);
    // public static IPAddress Parse(ReadOnlySpan<byte> utf8Text);
    // public static bool TryParse(string? ipString, out IPAddress? address);
    // public static bool TryParse(ReadOnlySpan<char> ipSpan, out IPAddress? address);
    // public static bool TryParse(ReadOnlySpan<byte> utf8Text, out IPAddress? result);

    public static bool IsValid(ReadOnlySpan<char> ipSpan);
    public static bool IsValidUtf8(ReadOnlySpan<byte> utf8Text);
}