Why was res_query broken???

[Chelsea Dyerman]

Would someone please be so kind as to explain why the ability to use
aliases for hosts by use of the env-var HOSTALIASES was removed from the
res_query funtion in the resolv library? Its a very nice way to be able to
use aliases for otherwise long hostnames like one tends to find for places
such as cmu.edu and etc... I seem to recall that that ability exsists on
more or less all the flavors of UNIX 'cept SunOS... 

Maybe there is a way to do that that the manpages dont disclose?

Here is how I used to do it:

	setenv HOSTALIASES $home/.aliases

	my .aliases file contained simple entries like

	foobar foobar.acc.foo.bar.cmu.edu

	etc...

	Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 * Chelsea Ashley Dyerman
 * casie at Soda.Berkeley.EDU
 * Organization(s): Experimental Computing Facility
 *                  University of California, Berkeley