@node inet_ntoa
@section inet_ntoa
@findex inet_ntoa

@c Copyright (C) 2005, 2009-2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

@c Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
@c under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or
@c any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no
@c Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover
@c Texts.  A copy of the license is included in the ``GNU Free
@c Documentation License'' file as part of this distribution.

The @code{inet_ntoa} function need not be reentrant, and consequently
is not required to be thread safe.  Implementations of
@code{inet_ntoa} typically write the time stamp into static buffer.
If two threads call @code{inet_ntoa} at roughly the same time, you
might end up with the wrong date in one of the threads, or some
undefined string.  Further, @code{inet_ntoa} is specific for
@acronym{IPv4} addresses.

A protocol independent function is @code{inet_ntop}.