CVE-2026-35378

The record

A logic error in the expr utility of uutils coreutils causes the program to evaluate parenthesized subexpressions during the parsing phase rather than at the execution phase. This implementation flaw prevents the utility from performing proper short-circuiting for logical OR (|) and AND (&) operations. As a result, arithmetic errors (such as division by zero) occurring within "dead" branches, branches that should be ignored due to short-circuiting, are raised as fatal errors. This divergence from GNU expr behavior can cause guarded expressions within shell scripts to fail with hard errors instead of returning expected boolean results, leading to premature script termination and breaking GNU-compatible shell control flow.

Affected packages

Related vulnerabilities

• GHSA-5pv5-xh52-hvrp uutils coreutils has an Incorrect Short Circuit Evaluation Issue Same vulnerability
• GHSA-532v-xp3f-837c uutils coreutils has an Incorrect Provision of Specified Functionality Issue in its cut… Also affects coreutils
• GHSA-6g8r-74qp-6859 uutils coreutils has a Time-of-check Time-of-use (TOCTOU) Race Condition Also affects coreutils
• GHSA-53gr-wmf4-8hh3 uutils coreutils's User Interface (UI) Misrepresents Critical Information Also affects coreutils
• GHSA-5v4g-vw9x-h534 uutils coreutils has an Improper Input Validation Issue in its env Utility Also affects coreutils
• GHSA-4wrp-79m8-9m9p uutils coreutils has a Time-of-check Time-of-use (TOCTOU) Race Condition Also affects coreutils
• GHSA-fhr3-xh3q-69w6 uutils coreutils has an Incorrect Provision of Specified Functionality Issue Also affects coreutils
• GHSA-m2pg-c7m6-77pj uutils coreutils has an Improper Input Validation Issue in its cut Utility Also affects coreutils