Cross-env is a valuable npm package designed to facilitate cross-platform environment variable management for Node.js projects, ensuring consistent script execution regardless of the underlying operating system. Comparing versions 5.0.5 and 5.0.4, the core functionality remains consistent, focused on enabling developers to define and utilize environment variables within their npm scripts without worrying about platform-specific syntax differences. Both rely on the same dependencies, is-windows and cross-spawn, crucial for detecting the operating system and spawning child processes with the correct environment variables set, respectively.
A largely identical set of devDependencies is shared between both versions - tools designed for streamlining the development workflow, testing, and code quality. These include packages such as eslint for code linting, jest-cli for running tests, and semantic-release for automated versioning and release management. Therefore, the upgrade from 5.0.4 to 5.0.5 is unlikely to introduce any breaking changes or require significant code modifications for existing users.
The primary difference lies in the releaseDate, with version 5.0.5 released on August 8, 2017, subsequent to version 5.0.4's release on August 6, 2017. This suggests that version 5.0.5 likely incorporates bug fixes or minor improvements identified after the release of the previous stable version. Developers leveraging cross-env benefit from its consistent approach to handling environment variables, enabling smoother development and deployment cycles across diverse environments, improving compatibility and the overall developer experience.
All the vulnerabilities related to the version 5.0.5 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.
