A Cleaner Display of Your IP in Windows
Jeremy Morgan 
Dec 12, 2012 - 2 min read
Last Update: Jul 11, 2021
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If you’re like me, you constantly need your IP in Windows. When working with network interfaces and multiple servers, I find myself checking my IP a lot.
I built a little utility for myself that only shows the IP addresses on the host, rather than typing ipconfig and getting a long list, I can simply type “ip” and it will only show IP addresses.
C++ Version of the Tool
The following compiles with GCC for Windows, and probably a lot of other compilers as well. This utility is standalone and only needs to be copied into a folder within your path.
Create a file called ip.cpp and add the following:
#include <iostream>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <typeinfo>
using namespace std;
int main()
{
FILE *dir;
char direntry[80];
dir = popen("ipconfig", "r");
while (!feof(dir)) {
fgets(direntry, sizeof(direntry), dir);
string output = direntry;
if ((output.find("IP") != string::npos)) {
cout << direntry << "\n";
}
}
return 0;
}
This simple executable will cut down your time by only showing the information you need at the time. I hope this helps someone.
C# Version of the Tool
I have also created a C# version of this tool, but it requires the .NET framework to be installed. Create a file called IP.cs with the following code:
using System;
namespace iptools
{
class ip
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
//Create process
System.Diagnostics.Process pProcess = new System.Diagnostics.Process();
//the command we want to run
pProcess.StartInfo.FileName = "ipconfig";
// we don't want this to output the original command
pProcess.StartInfo.UseShellExecute = false;
//Set output of program to be written to process output stream
pProcess.StartInfo.RedirectStandardOutput = true;
//Start the process
pProcess.Start();
//Get program output
string strOutput = pProcess.StandardOutput.ReadToEnd();
// split it by line
string[] ourText = strOutput.Split('\n');
Console.WriteLine("\n\n");
foreach (string line in ourText)
{
if (line.Contains("IP"))
{
Console.WriteLine(line + "\n");
}
}
// close the process
pProcess.Close();
}
}
}
Compile this file from the command line:
csc ip.cs
and it’s ready!
Summary
These files both provide a simple executable to output your ip address where you can read it quickly. If you have multiple adapters they will show up as well.
I hope this helps!
If you’d like to learn more, here’s a great C++ fundamentals course.
Advanced C++ developers wanting to level up should check out High-performance computing in C++
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