Hi Dan

I only set a field as a number type if I intend to be able to do something mathematic with it. For example I would store 'quantity' as a number because I might need to work out a sum of quantities. But I would store a telephone number as short text because we don't normally do math on telephone numbers.

Likewise it's unlikely you would need to do math on the IP addresses. So I would store them in a field with type short text.

Sorry - hit submit a bit early. I was going to add - if I really wanted to be able to do any sort of calculations with an IP address, I would split it into the 4 octets in 4 separate fields.
Hope this helps, Colin.

I agree with Colin. Store the IP Address as Short Text.
Here is one way to search for a specific IP Address (see screenshot).

Cool!  I'll give that a try tomorrow at work!

Also try Search Form 2.0. Simplify it down for your needs!

So I did try that today but sorting doesn't work correctly  Sorting goes from 192.168.1.1 to 192.168.1.10 to 192.168.1.100 before it gets to 192.168.1.2

and search form 2.0 is AWESOME!  I already used it on another project and it works GREAT

Yeah, sorting wont work for your intention because its done as a string.

When the sorting treats it as a string, it goes:

1
10
11
12
. . .
19
2
20
21
22
. . .
29
3
30

And so on.

To sort correctly, it would need to be designated as a number (This is one of those mathematical things Colin was talking about). As he says, if you wanted complete control and 100% properly done, you would need to store each "Part" of the IP in a separate box. You could then use Concatenation in your search 2.0 form to display it as intended.

Something like
IP1 & "." & IP2 & "." & IP3 & "." & IP4
Would Produce 192.168.0.1 from the 4 separate boxes and enable to you sort alpha numerically

Yeah, I've only actually done 2 major releases and both used Search Form 2.0. Plus a bunch a smaller DB's for myself

You beat me to it Dan. LOL Took too long putting an image together. 😁

Its Happenening! I'm becoming a pro!!!!

If I split up the IP address into 4 cells though there would be no way to assign no duplicates to the field to make sure the same address is not used as a static address somewhere in our network

{Composite Key}

What Alex is referring to is Composite Keys

Essentially, you'd set all the required fields into a single indexed field (Called a composite key) which can then be dupe checked