> seems to me it should be pretty easy.  at *some* point of the loop
> it decided what the address is for the given interface.  save this
> for later (ie, after you've actually done the ifconfig) and then
> add the route.

Not true.  There may be more than one address per interface in each
/etc/ifconfig.xxx file.  Also, not every address is an IP address.
Also, the lines that specify IP addresses are not all formatted the
same, and contain more information than just the IP address.
Consistently getting just the IP address out of such a line would be
a pain - you'd need to know how to parse an ifconfig command line, for
all current and future versions of ifconfig.

			       _MelloN_