gethostbyname in script?

farry · 03-13-2005, 03:19 AM

How do I assign the IP address of a given hostname to an environment variable in a bash script? I want to use the same lookup methods as the gethostbyname system call. i.e. it needs to use both the /etc/hosts file and dns lookup to try to find the IP.

foo_bar_foo · 03-13-2005, 09:29 PM

there is a little thingy in bind utils that will do that i think called "host"
if it outputs too much cruft you can change it a little or parse its output a little either way
or just write a little backend c thing yourself

farry · 03-14-2005, 02:14 AM

Thanks, but that seems to do a dns lookup, but doesn't refer to the /etc/hosts file. i.e. I can ping a machine in the hosts file by name, but the host utility can't find it.