Consisting of a network portion and a node portion, the address for a host must be unique on the network. This unique 32-bit number is assigned to each computer connected to the Internet and used by the TCP/IP protocol to route packets of data to their destinations. The number is usually written in "dotted octet" shorthand notation, in which the 32 bit address is grouped into four sets of 8 bits, each eight-bit set is converted into a decimal number, and the four resulting decimal numbers are separated by dots. See URL, IP, TCP/IP, MIME, HTTP, FTP, WWW, web server, domain name, filename.