You're trying to do too much of the work yourself.

  use Socket;
  my $address = shift or die "Usage: $0 address\n";
  my $a = gethostbyname $address;
  $\ = $/;
  print defined $a ? inet_ntoa($a) : "Can't resolve '$address'";
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Sample output:

% ./sample_resolver.pl
Usage: ./sample_resolver.pl address

% ./sample_resolver.pl 127.1
127.0.0.1

% ./sample_resolver.pl 127.54321
127.0.212.49

% ./sample_resolver.pl 3456776543
206.10.57.95

% ./sample_resolver.pl localhost
127.0.0.1

% ./sample_resolver.pl perlmonks.org
209.197.123.153

% ./sample_resolver.pl 040.030.020.010
32.24.16.8

% ./sample_resolver.pl foo.bar
Can't resolve 'foo.bar'

% ./sample_resolver.pl 255.0.1
255.0.0.1

% ./sample_resolver.pl 256.0.1
Can't resolve '256.0.1'
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jdporter
The 6th Rule of Perl Club is -- There is no Rule #6.