Ethernet card address Through Python or C

I'm getting a problem to access the ethernet card address through python.
There are two ways to do it:

1. use "/sbin/ifconfig" and then do the string manipulation after taking the output using popen.

>>> import os
>>> p=os.popen("/sbin/ifconfig eth0")
>>> t=p.read()
>>> p.close()
>>> import re
>>> re.search("HWaddr ([0-9a-fA-F:]+)",t).group(1)
'00:00:86:5F:DF:AC'

BUT ....

I'm not sure this will run in a language independent way. If I'm using Linux with German lang. then will this work? Actually it is the most crude way to arrive to the solution.

I've progressed a little bit in the second way..

2. use the socket and fcntl and IN (linux specific library).

import socket
import fcntl
import IN
s= socket.socket(socket.AF_INET,socket.SOCK_STREAM)
fd = s.fileno()
fcntl.ioctl(fd,IN.SIOCSIFHWADDR,'')
But the last line raises error..

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
IOError: [Errno 19] No such device

Anyway I want in linux only not in a platform independent way. For windows I've already solved the problem with netbios library.

I'll expect the solution in Linux platform in a language independent way.

Try this:

import socket
import fcntl
import string
import sys
import exceptions

def getINTF():
f = open("/proc/net/dev")
ret = []
iflist = f.readlines()
f.close()
for line in iflist:
if ':' not in line:
continue
words=string.split(line,':')
ifname, rest = words[0],words[1:]
ifname = string.strip(ifname)
ret.append(ifname)
return ret

def hexy(n):
return "%02x" % (ord(n))

def getMAC(ifname):
SIOCGIFHWADDR = 0x8927 # magic number
s=socket.socket(socket.AF_INET,socket.SOCK_STREAM)
ifname = string.strip(ifname)
ifr = ifname + '\0'*(32-len(ifname))
try:
r= fcntl.ioctl(s.fileno(),SIOCGIFHWADDR,ifr)
addr = map(hexy,r[18:24])
ret = (':'.join(map(str, addr)))
except IOError, e:
ret = ''
return ret

list = getINTF()
for i in list:
print i, getIP(i), getMAC(i), getUP(i)