Proposal [Trac #1212]: add IPv6 support to network library

[Bryan O'Sullivan]

Bryan O'Sullivan wrote:

> This proposal adds two standard protocol-independent functions to 
> Network.BSD to allow the networking code to work with both IPv6 and IPv4 
> addresses and protocols.

There have been two comments so far.

Sven Panne would like to see a portable (i.e. not platform dependent) 
set of constants defined in the package.  I have no problem with this, 
so I'll trim the list down to ones that are known to work everywhere.

Peter Simons suggests that in fact Network.Socket would be a better home 
for all of the new functionality, instead of Network.BSD, as the IPv6 
entry points and constants do not have a BSD heritage (they're defined 
in RFC 2553, and available on all modern operating systems under the 
same names).  I agree.  Furthermore, adding this functionality to 
Network.Socket will mean that new code will never need to import 
Network.BSD.

As a consequence, I'm going to redo the patch, and tender it for 
consideration again in a day or two, then extend the discussion period 
for another week.

	<b