PERL5404DELTA(1perl)

📦
version 5.44.0 · 2 versions
, in arch rolling

💖 perl5404delta — what's new for perl v5.40.4 💖

okay bestie, gather round, because this is the entire tea on perl5404delta, the page that spills what changed in Perl v5.40.4. it's giving "short but spicy" and i'm obsessed 🎀

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

So this doc walks you through the glow-up between the 5.40.3 release and the 5.40.4 release. that's it, that's the vibe 💅

If you're jumping up from something older, like 5.40.2, no worries, but do yourself a favor and read perl5403delta first, because that one covers the diff between 5.40.2 and 5.40.3. one delta at a time, we don't skip steps 🦋

🚨 Security 🚨

[CVE-2026-4176] Vulnerability in Compress::Raw::Zlib

Not gonna lie, this one's the main character of the whole release 😭

Compress::Raw::Zlib ships inside Perl as a dual-life core module, and it was vulnerable to [CVE-2026-3381] all because of a vendored version of zlib that had several vulnerabilities of its own, including [CVE-2026-27171]. yeah. a whole little bundle of yikes. 💀

The link for that first one is <https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-3381> and the nested one is <https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-27171>.

This whole problem got assigned [CVE-2026-4176] by the CPAN Security Group, and their home base is over at <https://security.metacpan.org/>. shoutout to them for handling it 🫶

The CVE record itself lives at <https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-4176>.

🌈 Incompatible Changes 🌈

Literally none. There are no changes intentionally incompatible with 5.40.3. slay.

And listen, if you do find an incompatible change in there, that's not a feature, that's a bug, and we need you to submit a report. peek at "Reporting Bugs" down below for how 👇

📦 Modules and Pragmata 📦

✨ Updated Modules and Pragmata ✨

  • Compress::Raw::Zlib got upgraded from version 2.212 to 2.222. (yeah, that's the security one, told you she was the main character)
  • Module::CoreList got upgraded from version 5.20250803_40 to 5.20260329_40.

📖 Documentation 📖

Changes to Existing Documentation

We tried our very best to update the docs so they actually match everything listed in this document. If you catch one we missed, please open an issue at <https://github.com/Perl/perl5/issues>. we're not mad, we just wanna know 🙈

🧪 Testing 🧪

Tests were added and changed to reflect all the other additions and changes in this release. gotta keep the vibes verified, no cap ✅

🎉 Acknowledgements 🎉

Perl 5.40.4 is giving approximately 8 months of development since Perl 5.40.3, and it contains approximately 4,000 lines of changes across 58 files from 10 authors. iconic behavior, honestly 👑

And if we skip the auto-generated files, the documentation, and the release tools, that's approximately 2,800 lines of changes to 24 .pm, .t, .c and .h files. we love a focused queen 💜

Perl keeps flourishing into its fourth decade thanks to a vibrant community of users and developers, and the following people are known to have contributed the improvements that became Perl 5.40.4:

Eric Herman, James E Keenan, Karen Etheridge, Max Maischein, Olaf Alders, Paul Marquess, Philippe Bruhat (BooK), Richard Leach, Steve Hay, Thibault Duponchelle.

okay real talk though: that list is almost certainly incomplete, because it's 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. so if you're not on it, you're still loved 🫶

Many of the changes in this version originated in the CPAN modules included in Perl's core, and we're grateful to the entire CPAN community for helping Perl flourish. mutuals forever 💖

And if you want the full complete list of all of Perl's historical contributors, go read the AUTHORS file in the Perl source distribution. it's long. it's beautiful. it's giving receipts ✨

🐛 Reporting Bugs 🐛

Think you found a bug? First move: check the perl bug database at <https://github.com/Perl/perl5/issues>. There might also be info waiting for you at <https://www.perl.org/>, the Perl Home Page. do your research bestie 🔍

If you're confident it's an unreported bug, please open an issue at <https://github.com/Perl/perl5/issues>. And please, please trim your bug down to a tiny but sufficient test case — nobody wants a 500-line repro, we want the little bite-sized one that still hits 🍓

⚠️ If the bug you're reporting has security implications that make it inappropriate to post on a public issue tracker, then do not do that. Go see "SECURITY VULNERABILITY CONTACT INFORMATION" in perlsec for the details on how to report it. seriously. keep it quiet until it's handled 🤫

💌 Give Thanks 💌

Wanna thank the Perl 5 Porters for all the work we put into Perl 5? the cutest way is just running the perlthanks program:

perlthanks

That sends an email to the Perl 5 Porters list with your show of thanks. it's free, it's fast, it makes people's day. do it 💐

👀 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 perl5404delta, part of the Perl Programmers Reference Guide, sourced from perl v5.44.0 and dated 2026-10-17. go forth, upgrade responsibly, and stay safe out there 💖✨🦋

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