PowerShell force [int] to wrap (IP to Long conversion) - powershell

Question

Just a quick question as I'm kind of new to math in PowerShell
I need to make a converter in PowerShell that converts IP to Long. It works fine for lower values, but on higher ones it is causing an Integer Overflow.
[int]$a = Read-Host "First bit of IP address"
[int]$b = Read-Host "2nd bit of IP address"
[int]$c = Read-Host "3rd bit of IP address"
[int]$d = Read-Host "4th bit of IP address"
$a *= 16777216
$b *= 65536
$c *= 256
$base10IP = $a + $b + $c + $d
Write-Host $base10IP
Works fine if I input some low-int IP address, like 10.10.10.10 (out 168430090)
But there are cases where this leads to Int overflow. I would like PowerShell to wrap around if [int] reaches maximum value and provide me a negative value.
I work as a service desk and one of the software I support needs IP in Long form, including negative values.
Is it doable in PowerShell ?
Please advise if you need more details or something is not clear.
Alex

Answer 1

A simple solution would be to use [long] instead of [int].
[long]$a = Read-Host "First bit of IP address"
[long]$b = Read-Host "2nd bit of IP address"
[long]$c = Read-Host "3rd bit of IP address"
[long]$d = Read-Host "4th bit of IP address"
$a *= 16777216
$b *= 65536
$c *= 256
$base10IP = $a + $b + $c + $d
Write-Host $base10IP
And you can do what you want in even less lines of code
[IPAddress]$ip = Read-Host "IP address"
$ip.Address
UPDATE
Your comment explains a long wasn't what you where after. It sounds like an int you are looking for.
I could not find a way to have PowerShell do unchecked (losing precision) conversions or arithmetic, but using the BitConverter class you can get it working.
[byte]$a = 10
[byte]$b = 113
[byte]$c = 8
[byte]$d = 203
[BitConverter]::ToInt32(($a, $b, $c, $d), 0)
or
[IPAddress]$ip = "10.113.8.203"
$bytes = [BitConverter]::GetBytes($ip.Address)
[BitConverter]::ToInt32($bytes, 0)
Please note that IPAddress also supports IPv6 addresses, but this last conversion to an int clearly can't hold an IPv6 address.