Delivery-Date: Mon Sep  8 20:53:02 2008
Message-Id: <200809090352.m893q9Ti013843@bourbon.usc.edu>
To: cs551@merlot.usc.edu
Subject: Re: Regarding data being sent
Date: Mon, 08 Sep 2008 20:52:09 -0700
From: Bill Cheng <william@bourbon.usc.edu>

Someone wrote:

  > Well I thought that when I call inet_aton() with www.cs.usc.xxxx 0 should be
  > returned (as opposed to 24.28.193.9 and a non zero return val) so that I
  > could identify it and send the failure response message. Sounds like I might
  > be missing something simple.
  > 
  >  The inet_aton() routine interprets the specified character string as an
  >    Internet address, placing the address into the structure provided.  It
  >    returns 1 if the string was successfully interpreted, or 0 if the string
  >    is invalid.  The inet_addr() and inet_network() functions return numbers
  >    suitable for use as Internet addresses and Internet network numbers,
  >    respectively.

Ah!  I see what you are asking now.  inet_aton() expects
the input to be dotted numbers!  It's a simple format
conversion routine.  So, you should not use it to resolve
hostnames to IP addresses.  You should check the input.
If the input is in the dotted number format, then you
should call inet_aton().  If it looks like a hostname,
you should call gethostbyname().
--
Bill Cheng // bill.cheng@usc.edu <URL:http://merlot.usc.edu/william/usc/>


-----Original Message-----
From: Bill Cheng [mailto:william@bourbon.usc.edu] 
Sent: Monday, September 08, 2008 8:23 PM
To: cs551@merlot.usc.edu
Subject: Re: Regarding data being sent

Someone wrote:

  > When I pass in strings like cs.usc.xxxx to inet_aton() I get 24.28.193.9
and
  > a non-zero return value, but when I pass in nonsense like werwerw the
  > function returns 0 as the man pages say it will. Valid address work just
  > fine. Any idea what might be causing that?

Hmm...  I'm not sure what you are asking.  Sounds like it's doing what you
want.  Could you give a more concrete example of when it does something you
don't want?
--
Bill Cheng // bill.cheng@usc.edu <URL:http://merlot.usc.edu/william/usc/>


-----Original Message-----
From: Bill Cheng [mailto:william@bourbon.usc.edu]
Sent: Monday, September 08, 2008 6:57 PM
To: cs551@merlot.usc.edu
Subject: Re: Regarding data being sent

Someone wrote:

  > Is it acceptable if I print the IP of nunki at the server instead of the
  > localhost (127.0.0.1)

The adr command is to get the IP address given a hostname.
So, you should return the IP address if there is one.
--
Bill Cheng // bill.cheng@usc.edu <URL:http://merlot.usc.edu/william/usc/>