[magmastonealex]

I've used this a handful of times, actually!

I've mostly done it to determine a "next" IP address from a large range - i.e, what IP comes after 10.0.0.255, and how can I bound it between 10.0.0.30 and 10.0.1.128?

It's much easier to increment an integer, compare it to other integers, and then convert it back to an string-format IP than it is to implement those operations by "parsing" IP addresses.

[tomjakubowski]

An IP address like 127.0.0.1 is an integer, written in an odd base 256 notation! What I think you mean is that it's easier to increment an integer written in conventional base 10, because people are used to working with numbers like that.

[jolmg]

I'm imagining magmastonealex found it useful for things like working with each of 10.0.0.0/16 without having to manage the digits of those base-256 numbers:

  for (var i = 0; i < 2 ** 16; i++) {
    work("10.0." + i);
  }

as opposed to

  for (var i = 0; i < 2 ** 16; i++) {
    work("10.0." + i / 256 + "." + i % 256);
  }