Re: Perl 5.004 year 2000 compliant ? (Re: [whimsy@tkg.att.ne.jp: perl5.004?$B$N?(B 2000?$BG/LdBj$K4X$7$F?(B])
According to Fumitoshi UKAI:
> At Fri, 26 Nov 1999 00:24:52 -0800,
> Chip Salzenberg <chip@valinux.com> wrote:
> > > IIRC perl5 is y2k compliant, perl4 *isn't*. Or at least gmtime &
> > > localtime prior to perl5 returned the year as the final 2 digits of
> > > the year number, in perl 5 it returns years since 1900.
> >
> > This is a myth. Perl 4 is broken in many aspects, but Y2K isn't one
> > of them.
>
> hmm, I've replied to a questioner, then he said that in
> http://www.gnu.org/software/year2000-list.html#NotChecked
> perl5.002, perl5.003 were not yet tested and marked as
> `newer version was claimed OK'.
I am 99.44% sure that there has never been any detected Y2K problem in
any version of the Perl language. The GNU project list-keepers are
apparently being conservative by noting that they haven't tested this
themselves.
> What should I reply to him?
Tell everyone that Perl 5.004 is the oldest version of Perl that is
secure enough to use, anywhere. Versions before 5.004 had buffer
overflow bugs, which could lead to root exploits if Perl is installed
setuid-root (which it often is). BTW, the current maintenance version
of 5.004 is 5.004_05.
Y2K isn't the only reason people need to keep up with patches.
--
Chip Salzenberg - a.k.a. - <chip@valinux.com>
"Fleagal. Bingo. Drooper. Snork. They're cops." //MST3K
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