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Yeah. An IP address is 32 bits long. It's usually represented as four 8-bit decimals (74.125.227.40), but it's perfectly valid to represent it as a single 32-bit decimal (1249764136).

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That's cool. I didn't know browsers could parse it in that manner, but I suppose it makes enough sense.

The formatting of an IP in this matter is translated at the network level.

The following also works (from the command line):

ping 1249764136

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