> what operating system? windows/linux(distribution?)/osx?
> how many network adapters are in the machine?

Linux.

> on windows use `ipconfig /all` and parse output or WMI through Win32OLE
> on unix `/sbin/ifconfig -a`

I know about the system commands.  Is there a library/API to get these
programmatically without having to parse output from a sytem command?

Thanks,
W.