About This Manual

This manual provides an overview of high-level programming with open network computing remote procedure calls (ONC RPC), describes how to use the rpcgen protocol compiler to create applications, and describes the RPC programming interface. See rpcgen(1) for more information.

Audience

This guide assumes a knowledge of network theory and is for experienced programmers who want to write network applications using open-network computing remote procedure calls (ONC RPC) without needing to know about the underlying network.

Organization

This guide contains three chapters, an appendix, and an index:

Chapter 1 Provides an overview of high-level programming through remote procedure calls (RPC), and discusses the RPC model and versions, external data representation, and RPC independence from network transport protocol.
This chapter is for anyone interested in ONC RPC.

Chapter 2 Describes how to write RPC client and server applications with the rpcgen protocol compiler. It also provides some information on rpcgen, client and server programming, debugging applications, the C preprocessor, and RPC language syntax. This chapter also describes how to create routines for external data representation (XDR).
This chapter is for programmers who want to use rpcgen to write RPC-based network applications.

Chapter 3 Describes the RPC programming interface layers, XDR serialization defaults, raw RPC, and miscellaneous RPC features.
This chapter is for programmers who need to understand RPC mechanisms to write customized network applications.

Appendix A Contains additional notes on the XDR library. This appendix is for programmers who want to implement RPC and XDR on new machines.

New and Changed Information

The contents of this manual have not changed since the previous release.

Related Documents

: The Network Programmer's Guide explains how to write programs that use networking system calls.

: The Network and Communications Overview provides general information about addressing, naming, routing, and network protocols and provides a summary of network applications native to Digital UNIX.

: The Network Administration discusses system and network setup tasks.

The Network Administration discusses day-to-day network administration tasks and explains how to isolate and correct problems in network communications. The printed version of the Digital UNIX documentation set is color coded to help specific audiences quickly find the books that meet their needs. (You can order the printed documentation from Digital.) This color coding is reinforced with the use of an icon on the spines of books. The following list describes this convention:

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Conventions

This document uses the following conventions:

%
$ A percent sign represents the C shell system prompt. A dollar sign represents the system prompt for the Bourne and Korn shells.

% cat Boldface type in interactive examples indicates typed user input.

file Italic (slanted) type indicates variable values, placeholders, and function argument names.

[ | ]
{ | } In syntax definitions, brackets indicate items that are optional and braces indicate items that are required. Vertical bars separating items inside brackets or braces indicate that you choose one item from among those listed.

. . . In syntax definitions, a horizontal ellipsis indicates that the preceding item can be repeated one or more times.

cat(1) A cross-reference to a reference page includes the appropriate section number in parentheses. For example, cat(1) indicates that you can find information on the cat command in Section 1 of the reference pages.

Chapter 1	Provides an overview of high-level programming through remote procedure calls (RPC), and discusses the RPC model and versions, external data representation, and RPC independence from network transport protocol. This chapter is for anyone interested in ONC RPC.
Chapter 2	Describes how to write RPC client and server applications with the `rpcgen` protocol compiler. It also provides some information on `rpcgen`, client and server programming, debugging applications, the C preprocessor, and RPC language syntax. This chapter also describes how to create routines for external data representation (XDR). This chapter is for programmers who want to use `rpcgen` to write RPC-based network applications.
Chapter 3	Describes the RPC programming interface layers, XDR serialization defaults, raw RPC, and miscellaneous RPC features. This chapter is for programmers who need to understand RPC mechanisms to write customized network applications.
Appendix A	Contains additional notes on the XDR library. This appendix is for programmers who want to implement RPC and XDR on new machines.

`%` `$`	A percent sign represents the C shell system prompt. A dollar sign represents the system prompt for the Bourne and Korn shells.
`%` `cat`	Boldface type in interactive examples indicates typed user input.
`file`	Italic (slanted) type indicates variable values, placeholders, and function argument names.
[ \| ] { \| }	In syntax definitions, brackets indicate items that are optional and braces indicate items that are required. Vertical bars separating items inside brackets or braces indicate that you choose one item from among those listed.
. . .	In syntax definitions, a horizontal ellipsis indicates that the preceding item can be repeated one or more times.
`cat`(1)	A cross-reference to a reference page includes the appropriate section number in parentheses. For example, `cat`(1) indicates that you can find information on the `cat` command in Section 1 of the reference pages.