$convert(<ip address|hostname>)

This function does a DNS lookup on the given address. For an IP address, it attempts to find the corresponding Internet hostname. For a hostname, it attempts to find the corresponding IP address.

This function does effectively the same thing as $iptoname() and $nametoip(). It is mostly useful when you want to convert an address, but you aren't sure if the input will be an IP address or not.

IP address or hostname corresponding to input, or nothing on error

$convert(some.school.edu)       returns IP address for "some.school.edu"
$convert(192.168.1.1)           returns hostname for "192.168.1.1"

An easy example of this in a script is:

alias dns {
  echo Matched $0 to $convert($0)
}