Slplit IPv4 address to minimum and maximum range - lua

Question

Using Lua how do I split a given IP address to get the minimum and maximum range for example:
94.19.21.119
I have a csv like this:
18087936,18153471,"AU"
18153472,18219007,"JP"
18219008,18350079,"IN"
18350080,18874367,"CN"
thats read to 3 tables and the csv is min,max,country code:
IPfrom = {}
IPto = {}
IPCountry = {}
they get populated like this:
IPfrom[18087936] = L
IPto[L] = 18153471
IPCountry[L] = "AU"
with L being the line number of the io.read, what Im then trying to do is get the minimum range so I can without looping check if it exists then if it does that key holds the index of the maximum range and if the ip is within the min/max I get the country code. Probably a different way of doing things but the tables are over 100000 entries so looping is taking some time.

Answer 1

Perhaps something like the following will work for you:
--
-- Converts an IPv4 address into its integer value
--
function iptoint(ip)
local ipint = 0
local iter = string.gmatch(ip, "%d+")
for i = 3, 0, -1 do
local piece = tonumber(iter())
if piece == nil or piece < 0 or piece > 255 then
return nil
end
ipint = bit32.bor(ipint, bit32.lshift(piece, 8 * i))
end
return ipint
end
--
-- Looks up an IPv4 address in a multidimensional table, with the entries:
-- {start_address, end_address, country}
-- and returns the matching country
--
function iptocountry(ip, tbl)
local ipint = iptoint(ip)
if ipint == nil then
return nil
end
for _,v in pairs(tbl) do
if ipint >= v[1] and ipint <= v[2] then
return v[3]
end
end
return nil
end
Example usage:
local countries = {
{16777216, 17367039, "US"},
{1578300000, 1678300000, "CAN"}
-- ... rest of entries loaded from CSV file
}
local ip = "94.19.21.119"
print (iptocountry(ip, countries)) -- prints CAN

Answer 2

A hash table (the basic type in Lua) will give you O(N). An array (a table with no holes with indices from someMinAddr to someMaxAddr) will give you O(1), but use a significant amount of memory. A binary search through a properly sorted structured table could give you O(log N), which for 100000 addresses is probably worth the effort. I imagine you could have a structure like this:
IPfrom = {
{line=L1, addFrom=from1, addrTo=to1, c=country1},
{line=L2, addFrom=from2, addrTo=to2, c=country2},
{line=L3, addFrom=from3, addrTo=to3, c=country3},
{line=L4, addFrom=from4, addrTo=to4, c=country4},
...
}
because I don't see the point of separating the to and country fields from the other info, just means more table lookup. Anyways if you really do want to separate them the following is not affected:
-- init:
create table from CSV file
sort IPFrom on addFrom field
-- as many times as required:
function findIP(addr)
is addr smaller than IPfrom[middle].addrTo3?
if yes, is addr smaller than IPfrom[middle of middle]?
etc
end
This is recursive so if you structure it properly you can use tail calls and not worry about stack overflow (;), something like
function findIPRecurs(addr, ipTbl, indxMin, indxMax)
local middle = (indxMin + indxMax )/2
local midAddr = ipTbl[middle].addrFrom
if addr < midAddr then
return findIPRecurs(addr, ipTbl, indxMin, middle)
else if addr > midAddr then
return findIPRecurs(addr, ipTbl, middle, indxMax)
else -- have entry:
return middle
end
end
function findIP(addr)
return findIPRecurs(addr, ipTbl, 1, #ipTbl)
end
I have not tested this so there might be some fixing up to do but you get the idea. This will use the same memory as O(N) method but for large arrays will be considerably faster; much less memory than O(1) method, and probably acceptably slower.