How I alias a hostname without root access vis-a-vis gethostbyname?

I'm running a program which does (in its source code):

gethostbyname("whatever");

and I want it to use the local machine's address instead. I can't change the source. If I were root, it would be easy-peasy - I would just alias this name in /etc/hosts. But - is there something I can do as a _non_host_ user for the same effect on my gethostbyname() call? /etc/nsswitch.conf has:

hosts:      files nis dns myhostname

in case it matters.