Cross-env is a handy npm package designed to enable developers to set environment variables in a cross-platform manner, ensuring consistent behavior of commands regardless of the operating system. Comparing version 2.0.0 with its predecessor, version 1.0.8, reveals subtle yet important changes.
Both versions share core dependencies like cross-spawn for cross-platform process spawning and lodash.assign for object assignment, maintaining consistent core functionality. The developer dependencies, crucial for testing and development workflows, are largely the same; essential tools such as chai for assertions, mocha for testing, sinon for spies and stubs, eslint for code linting, and semantic-release for automated releases are all present. However, a notable difference is the removal of manage-path from the devDependencies in version 2.0.0. The manage-path package was used to manipulate the PATH environment variable. Its removal potentially indicates changes in how the library handles or relies on the system's PATH.
For developers considering an upgrade, the impact of this change should be carefully assessed. If your project relies on cross-env to directly manage the PATH environment variable, version 1.0.8 might be more suitable. Conversely, if your use case doesn't depend on this functionality, version 2.0.0 offers a streamlined dependency set. Both versions are licensed under MIT and maintained by Kent C. Dodds, ensuring a stable and well-supported tool for managing environment variables across different platforms. Choose the version according to your specific need of manage-path library.
All the vulnerabilities related to the version 2.0.0 of the package
Regular Expression Denial of Service (ReDoS) in cross-spawn
Versions of the package cross-spawn before 7.0.5 are vulnerable to Regular Expression Denial of Service (ReDoS) due to improper input sanitization. An attacker can increase the CPU usage and crash the program by crafting a very large and well crafted string.
