Ken,

With regards to alignment - I believe that is why the "fix" to use a 
union would force an alignment.  I will use an in_addr to ensure alignment.
As I indicated in my initial analysis - there is one other place 
gethostbyaddr is used w/o a struct in_addr - but the memory is 
malloced.   I am correct that malloc will return an alignment that is 
compatible w/ any structure - right?

Ezra