How to test /etc/hosts

I tried this out and it seems to work as expected:

echo "1.2.3.4 facebook.com" >> /etc/hosts

Then I ran:

$ getent ahosts facebook.com
1.2.3.4         STREAM facebook.com
1.2.3.4         DGRAM  
1.2.3.4         RA

I found gethostip which accepts either hostname or IP and also has options suitable to print out exactly what you need.

$ gethostip -d facebook
1.2.3.4

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