in defense of nslookup

[David Botham]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: bind-users-bounce at isc.org [mailto:bind-users-bounce at isc.org] On
> Behalf Of Don Stokes
> Sent: Wednesday, August 07, 2002 10:59 PM
> To: comp-protocols-dns-bind at isc.org
> Subject: Re: in defense of nslookup
> 
> In article <aior7r$cacr$1 at isrv4.isc.org>,
> Bill Manning  <bmanning at ISI.EDU> wrote:
> >then there is the tiny problem that DiG has changed syntax/response
> >dramatically over time.  todays dig will not give you the same
answers
> >or information that the dig of old would. (I'd really like to see the
> >odl behaviours back... :)
> 
> This is one of my pet peeves.  I've lost count of the number of times
> Host has oscillated between giving "friendly" answers and giving
> "zone-file-like" answers.  The Host that comes with BIND 9 looks like
> DiG when asked for a vaguely verbose response.
> 
> Changes like this break any scripts which depend on them.

If you are writing scripts, and you want to avoid breakage due to
program output changes associated with new versions of those programs,
try perl with NET::DNS module.  It provides a pretty good interface.

Dave...

> 
> Is there a better tool out there than Host or DiG that when given a
> simple query will just give back sensible answers, and that the
> maintainers don't change in fundamental ways every other week?
> 
> -- don