title: Representing IPv4/IPv6 addresses in Oracle
body: <p>In Oracle, what is the appropriate data type or technique for representing network addresses, which addresses may be IPv4 or IPv6?</p>
  
  <p>Background:  I'm converting a table recording network activity, built using the PostgreSQL <a href="http://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/static/datatype-net-types.html#DATATYPE-INET" rel="noreferrer"><code>inet</code> data type</a> to hold both v4 and v6 addresses in the same table.</p>
  
  <p>No row contains both v4 and v6 addresses, however.  (That is, a record is either from a machine's v4 stack, or a machine's v6 stack.)</p>