The way I understand it, is that perl just calls the standard c calls: gethostbyname and gethostbyaddr . The latter one returns the information which is defined in the netdb.h file (at least on solaris, but I guess this is similar on other unixes). Perl just returns the values the operating system returns, and therefore relies uppon the OS to determine the information.

Can you tell me which OS you are running on?

But, since I am not a code wizzard, .....
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Dr. Mark Ceulemans
Senior Consultant
IT Masters, Belgium