[erlang-questions] is inet:gethostbyname( IP ) correct?

[Raimo Niskanen]

On Thu, Oct 15, 2009 at 03:02:40PM +0200, info wrote:
> Dear Raimo,
> I can resume: I discovered that gethostbyname call inet_gethost.c 
> I don't understand inet_gethost.c :-(
> Where "goes" this problem for finding the information ?
> If we know where and what, we could perhaps find what is missing in my windows 2003 ...
> Hope to read you soon !
> John

Well, there is not much more to say. inet_gethost.c calls
struct hostent *gethostbyname(const char *name) in the 
winsock2 library:
  http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms738524(VS.85).aspx
It never returns.
It is deprecated but that does not mean broken.
I have a Windows 2003 server that it works on.
We have not found the reason it differs between
my server and your server.
And that is about it.


> 
> On Wed, Oct 14, 2009 at 03:34:12PM +0200, info wrote:
> > For me this function always returns {error,timeout} and I didn't find the reason even with the help of Raimo Niskanen !
> 
> Sorry about that, but your problem became a just too spooky
> Windows 2003 problem and that is not really my turf, and
> you seemed to have a possible workaround through inet_res.
> But it has been on my todo list to have a second look
> at the whole conversation when I could find the time...
> 
> > 
> > 
> > At the end of my last mail you have the references.
> > Regards,
> > 
> > Roberto Aloi
> > Erlang Training and Consulting Ltd.
> > http://www.erlang-consulting.com
> > http://aloiroberto.wordpress.com
> > 
> > Robert Raschke wrote:
> >  > This is part of the IP address spec (not sure where to look to find it,
> >  > though). I've seen addresses specified like this on and off in various
> >  > locations on a wide variety of OSes, for example in a /etc/hosts file you
> >  > can write:
> >  >
> >  > localhost  127.1
> >  >
> >  > Robby
> >  >
> >  > On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 8:06 PM, caio ariede   <caio.ariede@REDACTED  > wrote:
> >  >
> >  >   
> >  >  > Interesting case.
> >  >  >
> >  >  > The result doesn't appear to be an issue, but a feature of the
> >  >  > gethostbyname
> >  >  > original implementation, in C code.
> >  >  >
> >  >  > You get the same result, testing with PHP:
> >  >  >
> >  >  > $ php -r 'var_dump(gethostbyname("12.27"));'
> >  >  > string(9) "12.0.0.27"
> >  >  >
> >  >  > And other interesting results:
> >  >  >
> >  >  > $ php -r 'var_dump(gethostbyname("255.2.256"));'
> >  >  > string(9) "255.2.1.0"
> >  >  >
> >  >  > But I can't see where it's really useful.
> >  >  >
> >  >  > Caio Ariede
> >  >  > http://caioariede.com/
> >  >  >
> >  >  >
> >  >  > On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 3:15 PM, Garry Hodgson   <garry@REDACTED
> >  >  >     
> >  >  >  > wrote:
> >  >  >  >       
> >  >  >  > recently, a bug in my code caused us to pass a string
> >  >  >  > representing a floating point number to inet:gethostbyname().
> >  >  >  > i would have expected it to return an error, but instead it
> >  >  >  > returned an ip address, but one that made no sense to me:
> >  >  >  >
> >  >  >  > 1  > inet:gethostbyname( '12.27' ).
> >  >  >  > {ok,{hostent,"12.27",[],inet,4,[{12,0,0,27}]}}
> >  >  >  >
> >  >  >  > so my question is, is this behavior correct, and if so, what
> >  >  >  > exactly does it mean that a lookup of '12.27' maps to '12.0.0.27'?
> >  >  >  >
> >  >  >  > thanks
> >  >  >  >
> >  >  >  > --
> >  >  >  > Garry Hodgson
> >  >  >  > Lead Member of Technical Staff
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> -- 
> 
> / Raimo Niskanen, Erlang/OTP, Ericsson AB
> 
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-- 

/ Raimo Niskanen, Erlang/OTP, Ericsson AB