Here you have a quick example of how getaddrinfo() looks in actual
code in www_ping.py.
import socket, sys
if len(sys.argv) != 2:
print >>sys.stderr, 'usage: www_ping.py <hostname_or_ip>'
sys.exit(2)
hostname_or_ip = sys.argv[1]
try:
infolist = socket.getaddrinfo(
hostname_or_ip, 'www', 0, socket.SOCK_STREAM, 0,
socket.AI_ADDRCONFIG | socket.AI_V4MAPPED | socket.AI_CANONNAME,
)
except socket.gaierror, e:
print 'Name service failure:', e.args[1]
sys.exit(1)
info = infolist[0] # per standard recommendation, try the first one
socket_args = info[0:3]
address = info[4]
s = socket.socket(*socket_args)
try:
s.connect(address)
except socket.error, e:
print 'Network failure:', e.args[1]
else:
print 'Success: host', info[3], 'is listening on port 80'
It performs a simple are-you-there test of whatever web server you name on the command line by
attempting a quick connection to port 80 with a streaming socket. Using the script would look something like this:
root@erlerobot:~/Python_files#
root@erlerobot:~/Python_files# python www_ping.py mit.edu
Success: host mit.edu is listening on port 80
root@erlerobot:~/Python_files# python www_ping.py smtp.google.com
Name service failure: nodename nor servname provided, or not known
root@erlerobot:~/Python_files# www_ping.py no-such-host.com
Name service failure: nodename nor servname provided, or not known
root@erlerobot:~/Python_files#
Note that the socket()constructor does not take a list of three items as its parameter. Instead,
the parameter list is introduced by an asterisk, which means that the three elements of the socket_args
list are passed as three separate parameters to the constructor.