How to get IP address of the device from code?

Question

Is it possible to get the IP address of the device using some code?

Answer 1

This is my helper util to read IP and MAC addresses. Implementation is pure-java, but I have a comment block in getMACAddress() which could read the value from the special Linux(Android) file. I've run this code only on few devices and Emulator but let me know here if you find weird results.

// AndroidManifest.xml permissions
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE" />

// test functions
Utils.getMACAddress("wlan0");
Utils.getMACAddress("eth0");
Utils.getIPAddress(true); // IPv4
Utils.getIPAddress(false); // IPv6 

Utils.java

import java.io.*;
import java.net.*;
import java.util.*;   
//import org.apache.http.conn.util.InetAddressUtils;

public class Utils {

    /**
     * Convert byte array to hex string
     * @param bytes toConvert
     * @return hexValue
     */
    public static String bytesToHex(byte[] bytes) {
        StringBuilder sbuf = new StringBuilder();
        for(int idx=0; idx < bytes.length; idx++) {
            int intVal = bytes[idx] & 0xff;
            if (intVal < 0x10) sbuf.append("0");
            sbuf.append(Integer.toHexString(intVal).toUpperCase());
        }
        return sbuf.toString();
    }

    /**
     * Get utf8 byte array.
     * @param str which to be converted
     * @return  array of NULL if error was found
     */
    public static byte[] getUTF8Bytes(String str) {
        try { return str.getBytes("UTF-8"); } catch (Exception ex) { return null; }
    }

    /**
     * Load UTF8withBOM or any ansi text file.
     * @param filename which to be converted to string
     * @return String value of File
     * @throws java.io.IOException if error occurs
     */
    public static String loadFileAsString(String filename) throws java.io.IOException {
        final int BUFLEN=1024;
        BufferedInputStream is = new BufferedInputStream(new FileInputStream(filename), BUFLEN);
        try {
            ByteArrayOutputStream baos = new ByteArrayOutputStream(BUFLEN);
            byte[] bytes = new byte[BUFLEN];
            boolean isUTF8=false;
            int read,count=0;           
            while((read=is.read(bytes)) != -1) {
                if (count==0 && bytes[0]==(byte)0xEF && bytes[1]==(byte)0xBB && bytes[2]==(byte)0xBF ) {
                    isUTF8=true;
                    baos.write(bytes, 3, read-3); // drop UTF8 bom marker
                } else {
                    baos.write(bytes, 0, read);
                }
                count+=read;
            }
            return isUTF8 ? new String(baos.toByteArray(), "UTF-8") : new String(baos.toByteArray());
        } finally {
            try{ is.close(); } catch(Exception ignored){} 
        }
    }

    /**
     * Returns MAC address of the given interface name.
     * @param interfaceName eth0, wlan0 or NULL=use first interface 
     * @return  mac address or empty string
     */
    public static String getMACAddress(String interfaceName) {
        try {
            List<NetworkInterface> interfaces = Collections.list(NetworkInterface.getNetworkInterfaces());
            for (NetworkInterface intf : interfaces) {
                if (interfaceName != null) {
                    if (!intf.getName().equalsIgnoreCase(interfaceName)) continue;
                }
                byte[] mac = intf.getHardwareAddress();
                if (mac==null) return "";
                StringBuilder buf = new StringBuilder();
                for (byte aMac : mac) buf.append(String.format("%02X:",aMac));  
                if (buf.length()>0) buf.deleteCharAt(buf.length()-1);
                return buf.toString();
            }
        } catch (Exception ignored) { } // for now eat exceptions
        return "";
        /*try {
            // this is so Linux hack
            return loadFileAsString("/sys/class/net/" +interfaceName + "/address").toUpperCase().trim();
        } catch (IOException ex) {
            return null;
        }*/
    }

    /**
     * Get IP address from first non-localhost interface
     * @param useIPv4   true=return ipv4, false=return ipv6
     * @return  address or empty string
     */
    public static String getIPAddress(boolean useIPv4) {
        try {
            List<NetworkInterface> interfaces = Collections.list(NetworkInterface.getNetworkInterfaces());
            for (NetworkInterface intf : interfaces) {
                List<InetAddress> addrs = Collections.list(intf.getInetAddresses());
                for (InetAddress addr : addrs) {
                    if (!addr.isLoopbackAddress()) {
                        String sAddr = addr.getHostAddress();
                        //boolean isIPv4 = InetAddressUtils.isIPv4Address(sAddr);
                        boolean isIPv4 = sAddr.indexOf(':')<0;

                        if (useIPv4) {
                            if (isIPv4) 
                                return sAddr;
                        } else {
                            if (!isIPv4) {
                                int delim = sAddr.indexOf('%'); // drop ip6 zone suffix
                                return delim<0 ? sAddr.toUpperCase() : sAddr.substring(0, delim).toUpperCase();
                            }
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
        } catch (Exception ignored) { } // for now eat exceptions
        return "";
    }

}

Disclaimer: Ideas and example code to this Utils class came from several SO posts and Google. I have cleaned and merged all examples.