Interesting IE8 behavior

Type any sequence of less than 10 numbers into the address bar in IE8, and
hit "/ + ENTER".

What in the heck is the function of this?

Jon

"Jon Danniken" wrote in message
...
Type any sequence of less than 10 numbers into the address bar in IE8,
and
hit "/ + ENTER".

What in the heck is the function of this?

Jon


The address bar is a search bar. The / is irrelevant. Type in the same
numbers and just hit Enter and you will get the same result as you did
with / + Enter.
--
Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Oct. 1, 2004 ~ Sept. 30, 2010
Imperial Beach, CA

Bruce Hagen wrote:
"Jon Danniken" wrote in message
...
Type any sequence of less than 10 numbers into the address bar in
IE8, and
hit "/ + ENTER".

What in the heck is the function of this?

Jon


The address bar is a search bar. The / is irrelevant. Type in the same
numbers and just hit Enter and you will get the same result as you did
with / + Enter.

Okay, point taken, but what is the function of this, ie, what is the string
of numbers being translated into?

Jon

Bruce Hagen wrote:

Jon Danniken wrote ...

Type any sequence of less than 10 numbers into the address bar in
IE8, and hit "/ + ENTER". What in the heck is the function of this?

The address bar is a search bar. The / is irrelevant. Type in the same
numbers and just hit Enter and you will get the same result as you did
with / + Enter.

And if the OP doesn't want to do searching from the address bar, go to
and enable the option "Internet Options - Advanced tab - Search from
the Address bar - Do not submit unknown addresses ...".

Perhaps the OP doesn't realize that host names (www.intel.com) and
octet-parsed dotted-decimal IP addresses (192.168.1.1) are not the only
means of specifying a host. The octet-parsed IP address also has its
non-dotted form. It is, after all, a NUMBER.

IP addresses are binary numbers which *may* be presented in the dotted
decimal human-readable format. They are numbers with multiple
presentations. IP addresses can be presented as decimal values in 8-bit
parts (octets), hexadecimal, octal, or binary representations.

If you enter 10 decimal digits, or less (I'm assuming you're entering
decimal digits instead of any hex chars), IE will convert the IP
*number* you entered into the octet-parsed dotted-decimal form for that
same IP *number*.

Read:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_address
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv4 (assuming you aren't on IPv6 yet)

From the above last wiki article, "IPv4 uses 32-bit (four-byte)
addresses, which limits the address space to 4294967296 (2^32)
addresses." Well, it takes 10 decimal digits to encompass value of
4,294,967,296.

While IE8 can convert the 10 decimal digit number into the octet-parsed
dotted-decimal format (e.g., 1234567890 changes to 73.150.2.210), it
cannot handle more than a 10 decimal digit string. It won't convert
longer decimal numeric values of 11 to 39 decimal digits to an IPv6
address (that has values up to 2^128 bits long).

The trailing slash is irrelevant since whether it's a numeric IP address
or hostname, the URL syntax has the domain part terminated by the slash
character to differentiate it from the path, parameter, and anchor
section thereafter. Perhaps the OP should read up on URL syntax (e.g.,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Url).

"Jon Danniken" wrote in message
...
Bruce Hagen wrote:
"Jon Danniken" wrote in message
...
Type any sequence of less than 10 numbers into the address bar in
IE8, and
hit "/ + ENTER".

What in the heck is the function of this?

Jon


The address bar is a search bar. The / is irrelevant. Type in the same
numbers and just hit Enter and you will get the same result as you did
with / + Enter.

Okay, point taken, but what is the function of this, ie, what is the
string of numbers being translated into?

Jon


Pretty much the same as any search. Google is my search engine. I just
typed in 2289 and you will see from this result that every search result
had 2289 in it somewhere.

http://www.google.com/search?q=2289&...I7GGHP_enUS449
--
Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Oct. 1, 2004 ~ Sept. 30, 2010
Imperial Beach, CA

VanguardLH wrote:
And if the OP doesn't want to do searching from the address bar, go to
and enable the option "Internet Options - Advanced tab - Search from
the Address bar - Do not submit unknown addresses ...".

Perhaps the OP doesn't realize that host names (www.intel.com) and
octet-parsed dotted-decimal IP addresses (192.168.1.1) are not the
only means of specifying a host. The octet-parsed IP address also
has its non-dotted form. It is, after all, a NUMBER.

IP addresses are binary numbers which *may* be presented in the dotted
decimal human-readable format. They are numbers with multiple
presentations. IP addresses can be presented as decimal values in
8-bit parts (octets), hexadecimal, octal, or binary representations.

If you enter 10 decimal digits, or less (I'm assuming you're entering
decimal digits instead of any hex chars), IE will convert the IP
*number* you entered into the octet-parsed dotted-decimal form for
that same IP *number*.

Read:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_address
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv4 (assuming you aren't on IPv6
yet)

From the above last wiki article, "IPv4 uses 32-bit (four-byte)
addresses, which limits the address space to 4294967296 (2^32)
addresses." Well, it takes 10 decimal digits to encompass value of
4,294,967,296.

Ah, okay, it's doing decimel into octet parsed.

I tried 255 and got 0.0.0.255. 256 gives me 0.0.1.0, and 257 gives me
0.0.1.1. Makes sense now.

Jon