Getting hostname

[Holger Kubiak <debian@holger-kubiak.de>]

Hello,

I want to package a tool. In a shell-script I need access to a hostname
belonging to a given IP. If the package host is installed I get:

holger@myhost:~$ host 193.99.144.71
Name: www.heise.de
Address: 193.99.144.71

If the package bind9-host is installed I get:

holger@myhost:~$ host 193.99.144.71
71.144.99.193.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer www.heise.de.

I wanted to grep and awk the output. As you can see this will be
difficult. I checked the control-file of bind9-host. There is a line
"Provides: host" This is the reason why a line "Required: host" in my
debian/control-file do not solve the problem.

a) Can I get the hostname in my shell script another way (this could be a
question for this list)?

b) Is the provides-line a bug in the package bind9-host, because the
different host-binaries have very different outputs (this could be a
question for another list. Which?)

Greetings
Holger