Python program to find the type of IP Address using Regex

Last Updated : 23 Jul, 2025

Prerequisite: Python Regex

Given an IP address as input, write a Python program to find the type of IP address i.e. either IPv4 or IPv6. If the given is neither of them then print neither.

What is an IP (Internet Protocol) Address?

Every computer connected to the Internet is identified by a unique four-part string, known as its Internet Protocol (IP) address. IPv4 and IPv6 are internet protocol version 4 and internet protocol version 6, IP version 6 is the new version of Internet Protocol, which is way better than IP version 4 in terms of complexity and efficiency.

IPv4 was the primary version brought into action for production within the ARPANET in 1983. IP version four addresses are 32-bit integers which will be expressed in hexadecimal notation.
IPv6 was developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to deal with the problem of IP v4 exhaustion. IP v6 is 128-bits address having an address space of 2¹²⁸, which is way bigger than IPv4. In IPv6 we use Colon-Hexa representation. There are 8 groups and each group represents 2 Bytes.

Examples:

Input: 192.0.2.126
Output: IPv4

Input: 3001:0da8:75a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334
Output: IPv6

Input: 36.12.08.20.52
Output: Neither

Approach:

Take the IP address as input.
Now, check if this IP address resembles IPv4 type addresses using regex.
If yes, then print "IPv4" else check if this IP address resembles IPv6 type addresses using regex.
If yes, then print "IPv6".
If the address doesn't resemble any of the above types then we will print "Neither".

Below is the implementation of the above approach:

Python3

# Python program to find the type of Ip address

# re module provides support 
# for regular expressions
import re

# Make a regular expression 
# for validating an Ipv4
ipv4 = '''^(25[0-5]|2[0-4][0-9]|[0-1]?[0-9][0-9]?)\.( 
            25[0-5]|2[0-4][0-9]|[0-1]?[0-9][0-9]?)\.( 
            25[0-5]|2[0-4][0-9]|[0-1]?[0-9][0-9]?)\.( 
            25[0-5]|2[0-4][0-9]|[0-1]?[0-9][0-9]?)$'''

# Make a regular expression 
# for validating an Ipv6
ipv6 = '''(([0-9a-fA-F]{1,4}:){7,7}[0-9a-fA-F]{1,4}|
        ([0-9a-fA-F]{1,4}:){1,7}:|([0-9a-fA-F]{1,4}:)
        {1,6}:[0-9a-fA-F]{1,4}|([0-9a-fA-F]{1,4}:){1
        ,5}(:[0-9a-fA-F]{1,4}){1,2}|([0-9a-fA-F]{1,4}
        :){1,4}(:[0-9a-fA-F]{1,4}){1,3}|([0-9a-fA-F]{
        1,4}:){1,3}(:[0-9a-fA-F]{1,4}){1,4}|([0-9a-fA
        -F]{1,4}:){1,2}(:[0-9a-fA-F]{1,4}){1,5}|[0-9a
        -fA-F]{1,4}:((:[0-9a-fA-F]{1,4}){1,6})|:((:[0
        -9a-fA-F]{1,4}){1,7}|:)|fe80:(:[0-9a-fA-F]{0,
        4}){0,4}%[0-9a-zA-Z]{1,}|::(ffff(:0{1,4}){0,1}
        :){0,1}((25[0-5]|(2[0-4]|1{0,1}[0-9]){0,1}[0-9
        ])\.){3,3}(25[0-5]|(2[0-4]|1{0,1}[0-9]){0,1}[0
        -9])|([0-9a-fA-F]{1,4}:){1,4}:((25[0-5]|(2[0-4]
        |1{0,1}[0-9]){0,1}[0-9])\.){3,3}(25[0-5]|(2[0-4]
        |1{0,1}[0-9]){0,1}[0-9]))'''

# Define a function for finding 
# the type of Ip address 
def find(Ip):  
  
    # pass the regular expression 
    # and the string in search() method
    if re.search(ipv4, Ip):
        print("IPv4")
    elif re.search(ipv6, Ip):
        print("IPv6")
    else:
        print("Neither")

# Driver Code  
if __name__ == '__main__' :  
      
    # Enter the Ip address 
    Ip = "192.0.2.126"
      
    # calling run function  
    find(Ip) 
  
    Ip = "3001:0da8:75a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334"
    find(Ip) 
  
    Ip = "36.12.08.20.52"
    find(Ip)

Output:

IPv4
IPv6
Neither

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Python program to find the type of IP Address using Regex

What is an IP (Internet Protocol) Address?

Approach:

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