If you want to add a virtualhost on your Mac OS X box without having to wait around for ages, then the easiest way to do so is to shove a line into /etc/hosts and flush the dnscache. Here's a friendly bash function to throw into your .bashrc:
function edithosts {
if [ -x "`which $EDITOR`" ] || [ -x "`which $1`" ]
then
if [ -x "`which $EDITOR`" ]
then
export TEMP_EDIT="`which $EDITOR`"
else
export TEMP_EDIT="`which $1`"
fi
echo "* Using ${TEMP_EDIT} as editor"
$TEMP_EDIT /etc/hosts && echo "* Successfully edited /etc/hosts"
lookupd -flushcache && echo "* Flushed local DNS cache"
else
echo "Usage: edithosts [editor]"
echo "(The editor is optional, and defaults to \$EDITOR)"
fi
unset TEMP_EDIT
}
More simply, you can just flush the DNS cache manually with:
lookupd -flushcache