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How can I have a function in python that returns 1 if the a hostname resolves and 0 if a hostname does not.

I couldn't find anything useful, any thoughts?

Thanks,

Amir
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    Returning 0/1 is very 'unpythonic' instead of True/False. It would be some extremely specific code that could even tell them apart as `1 == True`, `0 == False`, `True + True == 2`, and `sum(n % 2 == 0 for n in range(1000)) == 500` – Nick T May 24 '19 at 18:28

1 Answers1

81

You can use socket.gethostbyname() for this:

>>> import socket
>>> socket.gethostbyname('google.com')
'74.125.224.198'
>>> socket.gethostbyname('foo')           # no host 'foo' exists on the network
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
socket.gaierror: [Errno 8] nodename nor servname provided, or not known

Your function might look like this:

def hostname_resolves(hostname):
    try:
        socket.gethostbyname(hostname)
        return 1
    except socket.error:
        return 0

Example:

>>> hostname_resolves('google.com')
1
>>> hostname_resolves('foo')
0
Elhanan Mishraky
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Andrew Clark
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  • just saw that a minute ago...I need to have my try except to return 0 and 1. Thanks! – Amir Jul 23 '12 at 18:22
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    I think he probably has, but the question explicitly asks for 0 and 1. Perhaps your comment is better pointed at the question author. – Bert Peters May 22 '17 at 09:56