PERL5263DELTA(1perl)

📦
version 5.44.0 · 2 versions
, in arch rolling

✨ perl5263delta — bestie's guide to what's new in perl v5.26.3 ✨

welcome to the perl5263delta page, section 1perl of the Perl Programmers Reference Guide 💖

🌸 NAME 🌸

perl5263delta — literally just what is new for perl v5.26.3, no cap 🦋

🎀 DESCRIPTION 🎀

okay so this doc spills all the tea on the differences between the 5.26.2 release and the 5.26.3 release 💅

and like, if you're upgrading from something even older, say 5.26.1, pls read perl5262delta first — that one covers the glow-up from 5.26.1 to 5.26.2 🫶

🔥 Security 🔥

bestie, this section is the whole reason 5.26.3 is a big deal. sit down, hydrate, let's go 😭

🔒 [CVE-2018-12015] Directory traversal in module Archive::Tar

so by default, Archive::Tar doesn't let you extract files outside the current working directory. cute, secure, love that for us. BUT 😭 the way that this secure extraction mode could be bypassed was by putting a symlink and a regular file with the same name into the tar file. not iconic, no ma'am 💀

[GH #16580] https://github.com/Perl/perl5/issues/16580 and [cpan #125523] https://rt.cpan.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=125523

🔒 [CVE-2018-18311] Integer overflow leading to buffer overflow and segmentation fault

the integer arithmetic inside Perl_my_setenv() could wrap when the combined length of the environment variable name and value exceeded around 0x7fffffff. and then? writing beyond the end of an allocated buffer with attacker supplied data. absolute yikes 🙈

[GH #16560] https://github.com/Perl/perl5/issues/16560

🔒 [CVE-2018-18312] Heap-buffer-overflow write in S_regatom (regcomp.c)

a crafted regular expression could cause a heap-buffer-overflow write during compilation, which potentially allows arbitrary code execution. the way that regexes are powerful enough to do crimes 💀

[GH #16649] https://github.com/Perl/perl5/issues/16649

🔒 [CVE-2018-18313] Heap-buffer-overflow read in S_grok_bslash_N (regcomp.c)

again with the crafted regular expressions — this time a heap-buffer-overflow read during compilation, potentially leading to sensitive information being leaked 😭

[GH #16554] https://github.com/Perl/perl5/issues/16554

🔒 [CVE-2018-18314] Heap-buffer-overflow write in S_regatom (regcomp.c)

yes, same function, another one. a crafted regular expression could cause heap-buffer-overflow write during compilation, potentially allowing arbitrary code execution 👑

[GH #16041] https://github.com/Perl/perl5/issues/16041

💜 Incompatible Changes 💜

good news bestie: there are no changes intentionally incompatible with 5.26.2 ✨

but if any exist? those are bugs. and we would very much like you to submit a report. see "Reporting Bugs" below 🫶

🌈 Modules and Pragmata 🌈

⭐ Updated Modules and Pragmata ⭐

  • Archive::Tar has been upgraded from version 2.24 to 2.24_01. 🎀
  • Module::CoreList has been upgraded from version 5.20180414_26 to 5.20181129_26. 🦋

💅 Diagnostics 💅

here's the additions and changes to diagnostic output — warnings, fatal error messages, the whole vibe check. for the complete list of diagnostic messages, go see perldiag 📖

🩺 New Diagnostics

🚨 New Errors

  • Unexpected ']' with no following ')' in (?[... in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/

(F) While parsing an extended character class a ']' character was encountered at a point in the definition where the only legal use of ']' is to close the character class definition as part of a '])', you may have forgotten the close paren, or otherwise confused the parser. 😅

  • Expecting close paren for nested extended charclass in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/

(F) While parsing a nested extended character class like:

    (?[ ... (?flags:(?[ ... ])) ... ])
                             ^

we expected to see a close paren ')' (marked by ^) but did not. 😭

  • Expecting close paren for wrapper for nested extended charclass in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/

(F) While parsing a nested extended character class like:

    (?[ ... (?flags:(?[ ... ])) ... ])
                              ^

we expected to see a close paren ')' (marked by ^) but did not. 😭

🩹 Changes to Existing Diagnostics

  • Syntax error in (?[...]) in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/

this fatal error message has been slightly expanded (from "Syntax error in (?[...]) in regex m/%s/") for greater clarity. glow-up, but make it clarity ✨

👑 Acknowledgements 👑

Perl 5.26.3 represents approximately 8 months of development since Perl 5.26.2 and contains approximately 4,500 lines of changes across 51 files from 15 authors. okay, icons only 💅

Excluding auto-generated files, documentation and release tools, there were approximately 770 lines of changes to 10 .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 5.26.3 🫶

Aaron Crane, Abigail, Chris 'BinGOs' Williams, Dagfinn Ilmari Mannsåker, David Mitchell, H.Merijn Brand, James E Keenan, John SJ Anderson, Karen Etheridge, Karl Williamson, Sawyer X, Steve Hay, Todd Rinaldo, Tony Cook, Yves Orton. 👑

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. y'all are the real ones, fr fr 🙏

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 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. tiny but sufficient, bestie — that's the assignment 😤

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. 🔒

🙏 Give Thanks 🙏

If you wish to thank the Perl 5 Porters for the work we had done in Perl 5, you can do so by running the perlthanks program:

perlthanks

This will send an email to the Perl 5 Porters list with your show of thanks. the way that gratitude is a group activity 🫶

📚 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. ⚖️

and that's the whole page, bestie 💖 this was PERL5263DELTA(1perl) from the Perl Programmers Reference Guide, freshly served as perl v5.44.0, dated 2026-10-17. mwah, go patch something 🎀✨

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