getipnodebyname, getipnodebyaddr, freehostent - get network host names and addresses
SYNOPSIS
#include <sys/types.h>#include <sys/socket.h>#include <netdb.h>struct hostent *getipnodebyname(const char *name, int af, int flags, int *error_num);struct hostent *getipnodebyaddr(const void *addr, size_t len, int af, int *error_num);void freehostent(struct hostent *ip);
DESCRIPTION
The
getipnodebyname(3)
and
getipnodebyaddr(3)
functions return the names and addresses of a network host.
These functions return a pointer to the
following structure:
struct hostent { char *h_name; char **h_aliases; int h_addrtype; int h_length; char **h_addr_list;};
These functions replace the
gethostbyname(3)
and
gethostbyaddr(3)
functions, which could only access the IPv4 network address family.
The
getipnodebyname(3)
and
getipnodebyaddr(3)
functions can access multiple network address families.
Unlike the
gethostby
functions,
these
functions return pointers to dynamically allocated memory.
The
freehostent(3)
function is used to release the dynamically allocated memory
after the caller no longer needs the
hostent
structure.
getipnodebyname parameters
The
getipnodebyname(3)
function
looks up network addresses for the host
specified by the
name
parameter.
The
af
parameter specifies one of the following values:
AF_INET
The
name
parameter points to a dotted-quad IPv4 address or a name
of an IPv4 network host.
AF_INET6
The
name
parameter points to a hexadecimal IPv6 address or a name
of an IPv6 network host.
The
flags
parameter specifies additional options.
More than one option can be specified by logically OR-ing
them together.
flags
should be set to 0
if no options are desired.
AI_V4MAPPED
This flag is used with
AF_INET6
to request a query for IPv4 addresses instead of
IPv6 addresses; the IPv4 addresses will
be mapped to IPv6 addresses.
AI_ALL
This flag is used with
AI_V4MAPPED
to request a query for both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses.
Any IPv4 address found will be mapped to an IPv6 address.
AI_ADDRCONFIG
This flag is used with
AF_INET6
to
further request that queries for IPv6 addresses should not be made unless
the system has at least one IPv6 address assigned to a network interface,
and that queries for IPv4 addresses should not be made unless the
system has at least one IPv4 address assigned to a network interface.
This flag may be used by itself or with the
AI_V4MAPPED
flag.
AI_ALL
This flag is equivalent to
(AI_ADDRCONFIG | AI_V4MAPPED).
getipnodebyaddr parameters
The
getipnodebyaddr(3)
function
looks up the name of the host whose
network address is
specified by the
addr
parameter.
The
af
parameter specifies one of the following values:
AF_INET
The
addr
parameter points to a
struct in_addr
and
len
must be set to
sizeof(struct in_addr).
AF_INET6
The
addr
parameter points to a
struct in6_addr
and
len
must be set to
sizeof(struct in6_addr).
RETURN VALUE
A null pointer is returned if an error occurred, and
error_num
will contain an error code from the following list:
HOST_NOT_FOUND
The host name or network address was not found.
NO_ADDRESS
The domain name server recognized the network address or name,
but no answer was returned.
This can happen if the network host has only IPv4 addresses and
a request has been made for IPv6 information only, or vice versa.
NO_RECOVERY
The domain name server returned a permanent failure response.
TRY_AGAIN
The domain name server returned a temporary failure response.
You might have better luck next time.
A successful query returns a pointer to a
hostent
structure that contains the following fields:
h_name
This is the official name of this network host.
h_aliases
This is an array of pointers to unofficial aliases for the same host.
The array is terminated by a null pointer.
h_addrtype
This is a copy of the
af
parameter to
getipnodebyname(3)
or
getipnodebyaddr(3).
h_addrtype
will always be
AF_INET
if the
af
parameter was
AF_INET.
h_addrtype
will always be
AF_INET6
if the
af
parameter was
AF_INET6.
h_length
This field will be set to
sizeof(struct in_addr)
if
h_addrtype
is AF_INET, and to
sizeof(struct in6_addr)
if
h_addrtype
is AF_INET6.
h_addr_list
This is an array of one or more pointers to network address structures for the
network host.
The array is terminated by a null pointer.