About NetAddr::IP

At some point a user wrote and asked the difference between 

NetAddr::IP and NetAddr::IP::Lite

NetAddr::IP::Lite contains only "basic" IP address operations to create IP objects, 

print or return their characteristics, do basic IP arithmetic, etc... a lot of 

which is implemented in XS in its sub-classes, whereas NetAddr::IP contains complex 

operations on nets, net ranges , etc... all implemented in perl. If you don't use 

those, you don't need the overhead of loading them, the autoloader, etc... 

Likewise, NetAddr::IP::Utilities and NetAddr::IP::InetBase exist to provide 

"very basic" ipv4 and ipv6 utilities without the overhead of their superclasses 

for module writers need to work with ipv4 & ipv6 "numbers" but do not need object 

oriented overhead or functionality. 

Take a brief look at the SRC of each to see what is supported in each without 

having to wade through the man pages to figure out where the overlap is. 

Basically the modules are broken down into these functional areas that cover 

various aspects of manipulating IP numbers.

NetAddr::IP::InetBase mostly XS

net to text conversion routines

        inet_aton

        inet_ntoa

        ipv6_aton

        ipv6_ntoa

        ipv6_n2x

        ipv6_n2d

        inet_any2n

        inet_n2dx

        inet_n2ad

        inet_ntop

        inet_pton

	etc...

NetAddr::IP::Util adds to above, mostly XS

	 above + ip arithmetic

        addconst

        add128

        sub128

        bin2bcd

        bcd2bin

        ipv4to6

        mask4to6

        ipanyto6

        maskanyto6

        ipv6to4

        bin2bcdn

        bcdn2txt

        bcdn2bin

        comp128

        naip_gethostbyname (platform/socket independent)

	etc...

NetAddr::IP::Lite adds to above

mostly 1 or 2 line functions and/or calls to sub classes

	all the "new" functions

	all overload functions ( + - ++ -- = print eq ne == > >= < <= cmp)

	  "copy"  (clone rather than reference)

  return of IP parameters such as

	  broadcast

	  network

	  addr

	  mask

	  masklen

	  bits

	  version

	  cidr

	  aton

	  range

	  numeric

	  bigint

	  contains

	  within

	  first

	  last

	  nth

	  num

NetAddr::IP adds to above

	  wildcard

	  short

	  full

	  full6

	  splitref

	  split

	  rsplit

	  hostenum

	  compact

	  compactref

	  coalesce

	  re

	  re6

enjoy...