You shouldn't need to do this. gethostbyname() should in fact return only the packed ip when referenced as a scalar 
my $packedIP = gethostbyname("www.perlmonks.org");
print join('.', unpack("C4", $packedIP)), "\n";

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This should work like a champ, although (myself and OzzyOzbourne were talking about this in the chatterbox), someone (tilly?) mentioned that in 5.6 the unpack isn't necessary. I can't confirm this though.

In reply to RE: Re: gethostbyname bug? by BastardOperator
in thread gethostbyname bug? by geektron

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