Bug #2251
closed
URI.parse accepts strings with invalid characters
Description
=begin
The regexes used in URI::Parser's initialize_regexp use ^ and $ rather than \A and \Z:
399 # for URI::split
400 ret[:ABS_URI] = Regexp.new('^' + pattern[:X_ABS_URI] + '$', Regexp::EXTENDED)
401 ret[:REL_URI] = Regexp.new('^' + pattern[:X_REL_URI] + '$', Regexp::EXTENDED)
The result is that URI.parse matches on any URI separated by newlines, rather than on its argument as a whole:
irb(main):001:0> require 'uri'
=> true
irb(main):002:0> URI.parse("blah\nhttp://www.foo.com/\nblahblah")
=> #<URI::HTTP:0x000001010aac78 URL:http://www.foo.com/>
I think programmers would expect URI.parse to only successfully parse strings that are URIs, rather than any string that contains a URI surrounded by a particular kind of whitespace. This issue has apparently caused at least one security vulnerability in the real world: http://schmoil.blogspot.com/2009/10/mainlining-new-lines-feel-burn.html
Replacing the ^ and $ with \A and \Z should fix the issue, and is unlikely to break any existing code. The Rubyspec project does not seem to have any tests for this behavior. This behavior is present in at least versions 1.8.6, 1.8.7, and 1.9.1.
-sq
=end
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