Subprocess puzzle and two questions

[William Ray Wing]

On Nov 13, 2012, at 11:41 PM, Roy Smith <roy at panix.com> wrote:

> In article <mailman.3664.1352867713.27098.python-list at python.org>,
> wrw at mac.com wrote:
> 
>> I need to time the operation of a command-line utility (specifically 
>> nslookup) from within a python program I'm writing.
> 
> Ugh.  Why are you doing this?  Shelling out to nslookup is an incredibly 
> slow and clumsy way of doing name translation.  What you really want to 
> be doing is calling getaddrinfo() directly.
> 
> See http://docs.python.org/2/library/socket.html#socket.getaddrinfo for 
> details.
> -- 
Because, unless I'm badly mistaken (very possible), getaddrinfo doesn't let me specify the server from which the name is returned. I'm really not after the name, what I'm REALLY after is the fact that a path exists to the name server I specify (and how long it takes to respond). In the "good old days" I would just have ping'd it, but these days more and more DNS boxes (and servers of all sorts) are shutting off their ping response.

Thanks, Bill