ipprefixtrie 1.0.0

A short description of your package

Current Version: 1.0.0

IPPrefixTrie is a project developed and sponsored by Interstellio IO. It serves a dual purpose—as an educational resource and as a functional library for managing and querying IP prefixes using an IP prefix trie (binary prefix tree). It is licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL).

This implementation is not a Radix tree or Patricia tree; it is a binary prefix tree, meaning it does not use path compression but explicitly represents each bit in the prefix. This structure is commonly used in networking applications where prefix-based lookups are required.

Supported Features:

• IPv4 and Ipv6 prefixes.

• Exact Prefix Matches.

• Longest Prefix Match.

• Or Longer Prefix Matches.

• Metadata per prefix. (for example your own defined dictionary that could contain paths etc.)

We welcome anyone who wishes to optimise or introduce other types of trees.

Documentation: https://ipprefixtrie.readthedocs.io

Installation

To install the IPPrefixTrie module, use the following command:

pip install ipprefixtrie

Usage

Here’s a quick example of how to use the IPPrefixTrie module:

from ipprefixtrie import IPPrefixTrie

trie = IPPrefixTrie()
trie.insert("192.168.1.0/24", {"desc": "Private IPv4 range"})
trie.insert("2001:db8::/32", {"desc": "Documentation IPv6 range"})

# Lookup an exact prefix
print(trie.get_exact("192.168.1.0/24"))  # Returns: ('192.168.1.0/24', {'desc': 'Private IPv4 range'})

# Get longest matching prefix
print(trie.get_longest("192.168.1.100"))  # Returns: ('192.168.1.0/24', {'desc': 'Private IPv4 range'})

# Find more specific prefixes
print(list(trie.get_orlonger("192.168.1.0/24")))

What is a Binary Prefix Tree?

A binary prefix tree is a data structure designed for prefix-based searching. Each node in the tree represents a bit of an IP address, making it well-suited for longest prefix match (LPM) operations, commonly used in network routing, firewall rules, and access control lists (ACLs).

Unlike Radix or Patricia trees, a binary prefix tree maintains an explicit path for every bit in the IP address, making it more straightforward but potentially more significant in memory footprint. This makes it useful for both practical implementations and educational learning, where a clear and intuitive understanding of IP prefix operations is required.

Educational and Practical Purpose

This project is also designed for learning and experimentation with IP prefix management while also serving as a practical tool for prefix-based lookups. While not optimised for high-performance production environments, it serves as an excellent reference for:

• Understanding network prefix matching in Python.

• Exploring how trie-based data structures work.

• Implementing basic networking concepts like routing tables and firewall rules.

License

IPPrefixTrie is released under the LGPL License, meaning you are free to use, modify, and distribute it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License.

For more details, see: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl-3.0.html

Contributing

Contributions to this project are welcome! If you’d like to report issues or suggest improvements, please submit a pull request or open an issue on the repository.

All code should follow the PEP-8 standard as outlined here: https://peps.python.org/pep-0008/

Contact

For inquiries about IPPrefixTrie, please contact Interstellio IO at:

Website: [https://www.interstellio.io](https://www.interstellio.io) Email: [e-mail]

You can also view the MAINTAINERS file for contacts.