Perl 5.42.2
Perl 5.42.2 has been released — a maintenance update to the long-running programming language that addresses a security vulnerability and brings core module updates. This release comes approximately three weeks after 5.42.1 and demonstrates the Perl community's continued commitment to stability and security.
Security: CVE-2026-4176
The headline change in Perl 5.42.2 is the fix for CVE-2026-4176, a vulnerability in the Compress::Raw::Zlib module. This dual-life core module was vendoring a version of zlib that carried several known vulnerabilities, including CVE-2026-3381 and CVE-2026-27171. The CPAN Security Group assigned the CVE identifier and worked with the Perl core team to coordinate the fix.
If your application uses Compress::Raw::Zlib for compression or decompression tasks, upgrading to 5.42.2 is strongly recommended.
Module Updates
Module::CoreList has been upgraded from version 5.20260308 to 5.20260329_42. Tests were updated to reflect the changes shipped in this release.
By the Numbers
Perl 5.42.2 represents approximately 3 weeks of development since Perl 5.42.1 and contains approximately 2,900 lines of changes across 57 files from 6 authors. Excluding auto-generated files, documentation, and release tools, there were approximately 1,900 lines of changes to 23 .pm, .t, .c, and .h files.
Compatibility
There are no changes intentionally incompatible with Perl 5.42.1. The release maintains Perl's long-standing backward compatibility promise. If any incompatibilities are discovered, they are considered bugs and should be reported through the official bug tracker.
Upgrade Path
Perl 5.42.2 can be downloaded from CPAN. Existing Perl installations can be upgraded via the standard build process: download the tarball, run Configure, make, make test, and make install. For those using Perlbrew or plenv, the new version is available through those tools as well.
As always, Perl continues to flourish into its fourth decade thanks to a vibrant community of users and developers who contribute fixes, documentation, and testing.