Yep, it seems we are thinking very much alike on this issue - And I do agree, having to rely on the output of *any* external program is less than ideal, but sometimes system permissions and available utilities limit choices.

The output of /sbin/ifconfig however I think you would find to be much more uniform than the availability of /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-* files across *NIX platforms - I know for example that my Debian servers don't use these configuration files and so this locale pragma for network configuration cannot even be seen to be consistent across Linux distributions, let alone *NIX platforms.

Oh, how I yearn for a consistent WIN32 API ... No, hang on a minute, no I don't ... ;-)

 

Ooohhh, Rob no beer function well without!