in reply to Re: Two-arg open() considered dangerous
in thread Two-arg open() considered dangerous

Japhy, you've fallen into the whitespace trap! How does "< $f" help you if $f starts with a space?

If two-arg open() can mislead as esteemed a monk as japhy, surely we should urge less experienced monks to steer clear of it.

    -- Chip Salzenberg, Free-Floating Agent of Chaos

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Re: Re: Re: Two-arg open() considered dangerous
by japhy (Canon) on Dec 12, 2001 at 04:03 UTC
    perlopentut covers anomolies. Anyway, that's why Perl 5.6 has the multi-arg open(). open(FH, '<', $file)

    _____________________________________________________
    Jeff[japhy]Pinyan: Perl, regex, and perl hacker.
    s++=END;++y(;-P)}y js++=;shajsj<++y(p-q)}?print:??;

[reply]
      Of course Perl 5.6 has multi-arg open ... I promoted its use in the node that started this thread!

      Sheesh, japhy, I know you're busy -- but set an example, please, and read the articles you respond to. OK?

      PS: Thanks for the perlopentut reminder.

          -- Chip Salzenberg, Free-Floating Agent of Chaos

[reply]
        I did read it, and that's why I too mentioned multi-arg open()... I was agreeing with you.

        _____________________________________________________
        Jeff[japhy]Pinyan: Perl, regex, and perl hacker.
        s++=END;++y(;-P)}y js++=;shajsj<++y(p-q)}?print:??;

[reply]
Re: Re: Re: Two-arg open() considered dangerous
by kwoff (Friar) on Dec 12, 2001 at 05:20 UTC
    I think anyone starting a filename with whitespace deserves to suffer. (Actually, I dislike any whitespace at all in a filename, but at least bash will tab-complete those cases. :)
[reply]
      I think anyone starting a filename with whitespace deserves to suffer.
      It's not a matter of suffering or not. It's a matter of being able to bypass security.

      Suppose a setuid script will only write to a file I own, and I want to attack "fred". I create "(space)fred", it checks with "-O" and notes that I own it, and then proceeds to strip the whitespace on the open. And boom, I've written into a file I don't own.

      Do not simply "ignore" special characters, saying "the user will have to suffer". As a bad guy, I could exploit your ignorance (heh), and get in. Bad design, worse results.

      -- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker

[reply]
      Bash will tab complete a file beginning with a space as well, but you need to use a quote mark before the space to distinguish it from a normal space... 
      % touch " tmpfile"
% rm " [TAB-autocomplete]

      [download]

      -Blake

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