Issue #12839: Fix crash in zlib module due to version mismatch.

If the version of zlib used to compile the zlib module is incompatible
with the one that is actually linked in, then calls into zlib will fail.
This can leave attributes of the z_stream uninitialized, so we must take
care to avoid segfaulting by trying to use an invalid pointer.

Fix by Richard M. Tew.

3 files changed, 11 insertions, 1 deletions

diff --git a/Misc/ACKS b/Misc/ACKS
index 6f7d9d1251..7096d728d2 100644
--- a/Misc/ACKS
+++ b/Misc/ACKS
@@ -874,6 +874,7 @@ Monty Taylor
 Amy Taylor
 Anatoly Techtonik
 Mikhail Terekhov
+Richard M. Tew
 Tobias Thelen
 James Thomas
 Robin Thomas
diff --git a/Misc/NEWS b/Misc/NEWS
index f6fe5b7014..23b336bb52 100644
--- a/Misc/NEWS
+++ b/Misc/NEWS
@@ -22,6 +22,9 @@ Core and Builtins
 Library
 -------
 
+- Issue #12839: Fix crash in zlib module due to version mismatch.
+  Fix by Richard M. Tew.
+
 - Issue #11657: Fix sending file descriptors over 255 over a multiprocessing
   Pipe.
 
diff --git a/Modules/zlibmodule.c b/Modules/zlibmodule.c
index ba0e59ce06..a1e605b3d2 100644
--- a/Modules/zlibmodule.c
+++ b/Modules/zlibmodule.c
@@ -52,7 +52,13 @@ typedef struct
 static void
 zlib_error(z_stream zst, int err, char *msg)
 {
-    const char *zmsg = zst.msg;
+    const char *zmsg = Z_NULL;
+    /* In case of a version mismatch, zst.msg won't be initialized.
+       Check for this case first, before looking at zst.msg. */
+    if (err == Z_VERSION_ERROR)
+        zmsg = "library version mismatch";
+    if (zmsg == Z_NULL)
+        zmsg = zst.msg;
     if (zmsg == Z_NULL) {
         switch (err) {
         case Z_BUF_ERROR: