The Correct Answer and Explanation is:
The correct answer is: length (4 octets), 8 bits
An IPv4 address is the standard 32-bit address used to identify devices on a network. To make these addresses more manageable and readable for people, they are expressed in a format known as dotted-decimal notation, such as 172.16.254.1.
This notation breaks the 32-bit address into four distinct sections separated by dots. Each of these four sections is called an octet. This directly answers the first part of the question: an IPv4 address has a length of 4 octets.
The term “octet” itself reveals the answer to the second part of the question. The prefix “octo” is derived from the Latin and Greek words for the number eight. In the context of computer networking and digital information, an octet is a unit of data that consists of 8 bits. Each of the four octets in an IPv4 address is an 8-bit number.
Since each octet contains 8 bits, it can represent 2⁸ (2 to the power of 8), or 256, unique values. This is why each number in an IPv4 address can range from 0 (represented in binary as 00000000) to 255 (represented in binary as 11111111).
To summarize the entire structure, an IPv4 address is composed of four octets, and each octet is composed of eight bits. By multiplying these two numbers, 4 octets × 8 bits/octet, we confirm the total length of an IPv4 address is 32 bits. This 32-bit structure provides approximately 4.3 billion possible addresses, a limitation that led to the creation of the newer IPv6 standard.
