new

Creates a new ipaddr object either from a human readable IP address representation in string, or from a packed in_addr value followed by an address family.

In the former case, the following are the valid formats that will be recognized: âaddressâ, âaddress/prefixlenâ and âaddress/maskâ, where IPv6 address may be enclosed in square brackets (`[' and `]'). If a prefixlen or a mask is specified, it returns a masked IP address. Although the address family is determined automatically from a specified string, you can specify one explicitly by the optional second argument.

Otherwise an IP address is generated from a packed in_addr value and an address family.

The IPAddr class defines many methods and operators, and some of those, such as &, |, include? and ==, accept a string, or a packed in_addr value instead of an IPAddr object.