Interesting. What operating system are you using? This doesn't work under Solaris 8. I added the open() statement to my script again and ran this:

print "OUTPUT: $_" for nslookup("blah.", "A");
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Here's the output:

*** ns1.coxmail.com can't find blah.: Non-existent host/domain
OUTPUT: Server:  ns1.coxmail.com
OUTPUT: Address:  206.157.231.13
OUTPUT:
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STDERR still goes to my console.

Regarding the splice, it's to get rid of the three lines you see output there (Server, Address, and a blank). 'host' and 'dig' do not ship with Solaris 8.

-Matt