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"host <tld>" returns 0 without any data



Hi,

Can somebody here explain to me why a DNS lookup of a TLD causes the
host(1) command to return successfully but not print any data?  Ie,
(why) is this correct behaviour?

$ host de.
$ echo $?
0
$ host com.
$ echo $?
0

The reason I'm not sure I understand why this returns 0 is that it
clearly does not have any A, AAAA, or MX records (which are looked up
according to the tcpdump), and if I ask for either one of these
explicitly, host(1) will (while still returning successfully) at least
print out this fact:

$ host -t A fr.
fr has no A record
$ host -t AAAA fr.
fr has no AAAA record
$ host -t MX fr.  
fr has no MX record
$ echo $?
0

I understand that I can't expect to get back an NXDOMAIN (since the
domain does exist), but I would have expected some sort of error or
output.

Can somebody enlighten me?

Thanks,
-Jan

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