RHBA-2009:0117 - Bug Fix Advisory

Topic

Updated perl package that fix many issues is now available.

Description

Perl is a high-level programming language commonly used for system
administration utilities and Web programming.

This updated version of Perl applies the following fixes and enhancements:

• A bug in the way Perl used the bless call, which caused performance

degradation, is now fixed. In previous releases, this issue was most
noticeable with applications that used "bless" and "overload" calls, or on
systems where Perl DBI modules were loaded.

• A bug that prevented Text::Tabs from expanding properly when UTF-8

characters are used is now fixed. This was caused by the pos() function,
which counted UTF-8 characters incorrectly. To resolve this, Perl now uses
the pos() function from bleadperl, which processes UTF-8 characters correctly.

• A previous security update incorrectly removed a necessary Util.so file.

This file is used to run the weaken() subroutine to Spoon.pm; as a
consequence, this bug caused any application dependent on Spoon or Util.so
to crash. This update ensures that the Util.so file is not removed during
upgrade.

• A bug that caused error messages to incorrectly output during the

"compilation" phase is now fixed. This bug could prevent correct error
messages from displaying, preventing developers from properly investigating
application problems. With this release, error messages now correctly
output during the "option analysis" phase.

• This update also fixes a bug that sometimes caused incorrect warning

messages to output when a user ran a perl script that caught and printed
eval errors. This was caused by a bug in Perl's Encode module, which
contained a call that required an Encode::ConfigLocal module (which did not
exist). To fix this, Encode.pm's code was corrected to prevent it from
performing a call that required Encode::ConfigLocal if it did not exist.

• The "perldoc" program now renders ASCII characters correctly in C and

en_US.UTF-8 locales.

• Logging through LOG_EMERG now functions properly.
• A reference in the Perl manual to an incorrect directory name is now fixed.

Users of perl are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which
contain patches to resolve this issues.

Solution

Before applying this update, make sure that all previously-released
errata relevant to your system have been applied.

This update is available via Red Hat Network. Details on how to use
the Red Hat Network to apply this update are available at
http://kbase.redhat.com/faq/FAQ_58_10188

Affected Products

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 5 ia64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 5 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 5 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 5 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems 5 s390x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian 5 ppc
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI 5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI 5 i386

Fixes

• BZ - 217833 - The Text::Tabs expand fails to expand correctly for UTF-8 data
• BZ - 375621 - packages from CPAN dependent on Scalar::Util don't work
• BZ - 379791 - perl bless/overload performance problem
• BZ - 429491 - use option "-m[M]-module" when module is not specified, error message should be outputted in phase 'option analysis'
• BZ - 431041 - "perldoc perlvar" renders incorrectly in C and en_US.UTF-8 locales.
• BZ - 435505 - Encode module in perl package can generate warnings.
• BZ - 454602 - perl scripts do not sent LOG_EMERG log messages (Sys::Syslog)

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)