Just add some aliases where it doesn't hurt and it's easy to figure out. (I use a tiny virtual machine for this purpose.) 

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;

use Dumpvalue;  # Core Module, dumps like the debugger

my $dumper = new Dumpvalue;

my $host = shift;

my ($name,$aliases,$addrtype,$length,@addrs) = gethostbyname($host) or
+ die "Can't resolve $host $!\n";


print "$aliases\n";
$dumper->dumpValue(\$aliases);

[download]

My /etc/hosts file 

127.0.0.1    localhost    tf-laptop    my-laptop

[download]

Running the above code with the argument localhost yields: 

$ perl gethostbyname.pl localhost
tf-laptop my-laptop
-> 'tf-laptop my-laptop'

[download]

$aliases is a string holding the aliases seperated by whitespace.

Hth
Thomas

In reply to Re: gethostbyname: What does $aliases look like? by tomfahle
in thread gethostbyname: What does $aliases look like? by Skeeve

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.