The ever-changing nature of dig

[Kevin Darcy]

Why don't you use Perl's Net::DNS module?


- Kevin

Mr Toad wrote:

> I've been using dig since BIND 4.9.x (dig 2.2), and I've found that
> each new major release of BIND seems to change the way that dig works
> - and not always for the better.
>
> The result of this is that I'm still using the old dig 2.2 because
> otherwise none of my DNS scripts will work, and I'm loathed to change
> the scripts for fear of the next change breaking them again.
>
> However, I don't want to keep using dig 2.2 because it's an old libc5
> binary, and I can't compile the source any more on my libc6 system
> (Debian GNU/Linux 2.2r4) - I get lots of compilation errrors.
>
> Here's what I've noticed:
>
> dig 2.2 - Still the best version as far as I'm concerned.
>
> dig 8.2
>
> a) Displays TTLs in user-friendly format rather than seconds e.g. 4H
> rather than 14400
>
> b) Uses spaces rather than tabs to separate  the fields.
> e.g. "domain<sp><sp>ttl<sp><sp>IN<sp><sp>A<sp><sp>IP-Addr" rather than
> "domain<tab>ttl<tab>A<tab>IP-Addr".
>
> c) Includes the class (e.g. IN) in the output, and provides no way to
> remove it.  "dig +nocl" does not work (c.f. dig 2.2 where "dig +cl"
> _did_ add the class if you happened to want it).  It looks like the
> print flags are not being handled properly.
>
> dig 9.1.x
>
> a) TTLs have gone back to seconds (thank goodness).
>
> b) Most of the print flags seem to have been removed - e.g. no
> "+pfmin".
>
> Has anyone else found the same problems?  Am I looking at this the
> wrong way, or using the wrong tool for scripting DNS stuff?
>
> Mr Toad