Why does this URL with excessive preceding dots resolve to an IP address?

Question

http://.................1168951531

Which, when put into chrome, previews to the URL http://69.172.200.235/, which redirects (by external server response code 3XX) to www.test.com, but that is outside the scope of what I'm trying to figure out.

How does such a weird URL like above resolve to an IP address? Is this a formatting rule?

Answer 1

Chrome is interpreting the number 1168951531 as a decimal number, which when represented in hexadecimal is 45ACC8EB. 45ACC8EB in hex is the same as the dotted decimal 69.172.200.235, when you take each pair of hex digits as one decimal number.

45 -> 69
AC -> 172
C8 -> 200
EB -> 235

Short answer: It's the pure decimal representation of the same IP address.

Answer 2

This is a long representation of an ipv4 address of the ip 69.172.200.235. Which maps to www.test.com domain.