Easy IP address handling with iptools

'iptools' is a set of tools for a working with IP addresses. The aim is to
provide functionality not presently available with any existing R package and to
do so with as much speed as possible. To that end, many of the operations are
written in `Rcpp` and require installation of the 'AsioHeaders' package. A current,
lofty goal is to mimic most of the functionality of the Python 'iptools' module and
make IP addresses first class R objects.


Functionality

The package primarily supports IPv4 addresses due to deficiencies in R's support
for large numbers, but there is IPv6 support for some functionality, and we plan to
build more in as R improves and as we do. Functionality includes:

- Converting IP addresses to their numeric form, and then back to strings, with
  'ip_to_numeric' and 'numeric_to_ip';
- Validating and classifying IP addresses with 'ip_classify';
- Range generation and checking with 'range_boundaries', 'range_generate' and
  'validate_range', and;
- Several inbuilt IP-related datasets.

The vignettes contain detailed examples and are well worth the viewing time.


Thank You!

We owe Dirk Eddelbuettel many thanks for creating the 'AsioHeaders' package
which made it possible to both remove the Boost dependency and to get 'iptools'
running under Windows.