[OpenAFS] "nondigits in number and not hexadecimal" when building RedHat kernel modules

[Derrick J Brashear]

Someone asked about this long long ago, and nobody understood what was
going on, probably because none of us ever saw it. 

If you use the kernel source as installed by the
kernel-source-(mumble).i386.rpm, you get a populated
include/linux/modules/*.ver and include/linux/modversions.h. 

If you make mrproper and make dep again, the problem goes away. Secretly,
the problem seems to be include/linux/modversions.h is broken. The header
you get from the rpm starts:
#ifndef _LINUX_MODVERSIONS_H
#define _LINUX_MODVERSIONS_H
#include <linux/modsetver.h>

The header you get after remaking dependancies:
#ifndef _LINUX_MODVERSIONS_H
#define _LINUX_MODVERSIONS_H
#include <linux/rhconfig.h>
#include <linux/modsetver.h>

_ver_str is defined in include/linux/rhconfig.h

Just add 
#include <linux/rhconfig.h>

after
#define _LINUX_MODVERSIONS_H

instead of needing to make mrproper; make config; make dep 
and you can move on to whatever your next headache is.