Perl 5 version documentation

perl5244delta

NAME

perl5244delta - what is new for perl v5.24.4

DESCRIPTION

This document describes differences between the 5.24.3 release and the 5.24.4 release.

If you are upgrading from an earlier release such as 5.24.2, first read perl5243delta, which describes differences between 5.24.2 and 5.24.3.

Security

[CVE-2018-6797] heap-buffer-overflow (WRITE of size 1) in S_regatom (regcomp.c)

A crafted regular expression could cause a heap buffer write overflow, with control over the bytes written. [perl #132227]

[CVE-2018-6798] Heap-buffer-overflow in Perl__byte_dump_string (utf8.c)

Matching a crafted locale dependent regular expression could cause a heap buffer read overflow and potentially information disclosure. [perl #132063]

[CVE-2018-6913] heap-buffer-overflow in S_pack_rec

pack() could cause a heap buffer write overflow with a large item count. [perl #131844]

Assertion failure in Perl__core_swash_init (utf8.c)

Control characters in a supposed Unicode property name could cause perl to crash. This has been fixed. [perl #132055] [perl #132553] [perl #132658]

Incompatible Changes

There are no changes intentionally incompatible with 5.24.3. If any exist, they are bugs, and we request that you submit a report. See Reporting Bugs below.

Modules and Pragmata

Updated Modules and Pragmata

  • Module::CoreList has been upgraded from version 5.20170922_24 to 5.20180414_24.

Selected Bug Fixes

  • The readpipe() built-in function now checks at compile time that it has only one parameter expression, and puts it in scalar context, thus ensuring that it doesn't corrupt the stack at runtime. [perl #4574]

Acknowledgements

Perl 5.24.4 represents approximately 7 months of development since Perl 5.24.3 and contains approximately 2,400 lines of changes across 49 files from 12 authors.

Excluding auto-generated files, documentation and release tools, there were approximately 1,300 lines of changes to 12 .pm, .t, .c and .h files.

Perl continues to flourish into its third decade thanks to a vibrant community of users and developers. The following people are known to have contributed the improvements that became Perl 5.24.4:

Abigail, Chris 'BinGOs' Williams, John SJ Anderson, Karen Etheridge, Karl Williamson, Renee Baecker, Sawyer X, Steve Hay, Todd Rinaldo, Tony Cook, Yves Orton, Zefram.

The list above is almost certainly incomplete as it is automatically generated from version control history. In particular, it does not include the names of the (very much appreciated) contributors who reported issues to the Perl bug tracker.

Many of the changes included in this version originated in the CPAN modules included in Perl's core. We're grateful to the entire CPAN community for helping Perl to flourish.

For a more complete list of all of Perl's historical contributors, please see the AUTHORS file in the Perl source distribution.

Reporting Bugs

If you find what you think is a bug, you might check the articles recently posted to the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup and the perl bug database at https://rt.perl.org/ . There may also be information at http://www.perl.org/ , the Perl Home Page.

If you believe you have an unreported bug, please run the perlbug program included with your release. Be sure to trim your bug down to a tiny but sufficient test case. Your bug report, along with the output of perl -V , will be sent off to perlbug@perl.org to be analysed by the Perl porting team.

If the bug you are reporting has security implications which make it inappropriate to send to a publicly archived mailing list, then see SECURITY VULNERABILITY CONTACT INFORMATION in perlsec for details of how to report the issue.

SEE ALSO

The Changes file for an explanation of how to view exhaustive details on what changed.

The INSTALL file for how to build Perl.

The README file for general stuff.

The Artistic and Copying files for copyright information.