I want to convert a scalar containing a machine name such as "somemachine.somecompany.com" into a scalar containing it's IP number such as "123.23.42.3" by looking it up via DNS.

The original name could already be an IP number in which case I don't want to change it.

If the lookup fails I want to get an empty string back.

I have been handed some ugly C code to do this, but it occurs to me that someone must have already done this in Perl.

Anyone know of a builtin/module that does this?

Cheers in advance.

In reply to DNS Lookup by tomazos

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