Issues compiling on RHEL 8

[max3925vats]

Hello, thanks a lot for maintaining this library.
I'm encountering some issues when trying to compile this on RHEL 8.
Using the default Makefile, upon issuing make, I get the following output:

m4 conf/linux.m4 libxdrf.m4 > libxdrf.c
gcc -O -Dlinux  -c libxdrf.c
In file included from libxdrf.c:156:
/usr/include/tirpc/rpc/rpc.h:38:10: fatal error: rpc/types.h: No such file or directory
#include <rpc/types.h>  /* some typedefs */
         ^~~~~~~~~~~~~
compilation terminated.
make: *** [Makefile:83: libxdrf.o] Error 1

Turns out, rpc header files have moved on RHEL 8. They are now made available through the tirpc-devel package.
To account for this, I modified the Makefile; added -I/usr/include/tirpc to CFLAGS and -ltirpc to LIBS.
Now, when issuing make, I get the following output:

m4 conf/linux.m4 libxdrf.m4 > libxdrf.c
gcc -O -Dlinux -I/usr/include/tirpc -c libxdrf.c
In file included from libxdrf.c:160:
xdrf.h:13:5: error: conflicting types for ‘xdrstdio_create’
 int xdrstdio_create(XDR *xdrs, const char *filename, const char *type);
     ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In file included from /usr/include/tirpc/rpc/rpc.h:43,
                 from libxdrf.c:156:
/usr/include/tirpc/rpc/xdr.h:358:15: note: previous declaration of ‘xdrstdio_create’ was here
 extern void   xdrstdio_create(XDR *, FILE *, enum xdr_op);
               ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
libxdrf.c: In function ‘xdropen’:
libxdrf.c:505:46: warning: passing argument 2 of ‘xdrstdio_create’ from incompatible pointer type [-Wincompatible-pointer-types]
     xdrstdio_create(xdridptr[xdrid], xdrfiles[xdrid], lmode);
                                      ~~~~~~~~^~~~~~~
In file included from libxdrf.c:160:
xdrf.h:13:44: note: expected ‘const char *’ but argument is of type ‘FILE *’ {aka ‘struct _IO_FILE *’}
 int xdrstdio_create(XDR *xdrs, const char *filename, const char *type);
                                ~~~~~~~~~~~~^~~~~~~~
libxdrf.c:505:55: error: incompatible type for argument 3 of ‘xdrstdio_create’
     xdrstdio_create(xdridptr[xdrid], xdrfiles[xdrid], lmode);
                                                       ^~~~~
In file included from libxdrf.c:160:
xdrf.h:13:66: note: expected ‘const char *’ but argument is of type ‘enum xdr_op’
 int xdrstdio_create(XDR *xdrs, const char *filename, const char *type);
                                                      ~~~~~~~~~~~~^~~~
make: *** [Makefile:83: libxdrf.o] Error 1

What other changes do I need to make to get this working? Thanks!

[alexholehouse]

OK so, I'm almost two years late here, but it seems on many linux distros the rpc headers have moved, and that the function def in (for example on Ubuntu /usr/include/rpc/xdr.h for xdrstdio_create is sufficient and does not need to be re-defined here, so the simple solution is simply to comment out the int xdrstdio_create(XDR *xdrs, const char *filename, const char *type); line (fwiw the return type should apparently be void here as well, in case anyone does find they need this line).

I've patched this now, but a more robust fix probably makes sense at some point