Simple IP address subnet calculator

Question

In this task I had to create simple IP address / subnet calculator in Python. I'm just wondering how you see this problem.

There is my code:

def toBinary(integer):
    binary = ['{0:0>8}'.format(bin(int(x))[2:]) for x in integer.split(".")]
    return binary

def ip_information(ip, mask):
    binary_ip = toBinary(ip)
    binary_mask = toBinary(mask)
    network_ip = ["", "", "", ""]
    broadcast_address = ["", "", "", ""]
    number_of_hosts = 1

    for x in range(4):
        for y in range(8):
            network_ip[x] += str(int(binary_ip[x][y]) and int(binary_mask[x][y]))
            broadcast_address[x] += str(int(not int(binary_mask[x][y])))
            if binary_mask[x][y] == '0':
                number_of_hosts *= 2

        network_ip[x] = int(network_ip[x], 2)
        broadcast_address[x] = int(broadcast_address[x], 2) + network_ip[x]

    return f"""
    Network IP: {".".join(str(x) for x in network_ip)}
    Broadcast address: {".".join(str(x) for x in broadcast_address)}
    Number of hosts: {number_of_hosts - 2}
    """

Output:

    Network IP: 192.168.0.0
    Broadcast address: 192.168.0.255
    Number of hosts: 254

Any tips on how to make this better, closer to an advanced (but still, can take under account to make it simple)? Or just a better solution will be definitely on point.

Using Python 3.10.

Answer 1

PEP8

You should use snake_case for function names. You did so with ip_information, why not with to_binary as well?

Naming

The function name ip_information does not convey what it precisely does. You might want to rename it.

Docstrings

Both of your functions are excellent candidates for docstrings to describe what they are supposed to be doing.

Use existing library functions

Since you did not tag reinventing-the-wheel, I suppose that you just want to get the job done. If so, your entire code can be replaced with the usage of the ipaddress module from the standard library:

from ipaddress import IPv4Network


def print_network_information(ipv4network: IPv4Network) -> None:
    """Prints the network address, broadcast address and number
    of addresses on the given IPv4 network.
    """

    print('Network IP:', ipv4network.network_address)
    print('Broadcast address:', ipv4network.broadcast_address)
    print('Number of hosts:', ipv4network.num_addresses)


def main() -> None:
    
    print_network_information(IPv4Network('192.168.0.0/255.255.255.0'))


if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

Note that the number of hosts differs from your version's number, since the network address and broadcast address are also valid host addresses within CIDR. If you want to compensate for this, just subtract 2 from the respective value.