rspec/rules/S5852/python/description.adoc
2023-03-29 14:00:31 +02:00

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Most of the regular expression engines use ``++backtracking++`` to try all possible execution paths of the regular expression when evaluating an input, in some cases it can cause performance issues, called ``++catastrophic backtracking++`` situations. In the worst case, the complexity of the regular expression is exponential in the size of the input, this means that a small carefully-crafted input (like 20 chars) can trigger ``++catastrophic backtracking++`` and cause a denial of service of the application. Super-linear regex complexity can lead to the same impact too with, in this case, a large carefully-crafted input (thousands chars).
This rule determines the runtime complexity of a regular expression and informs you of the complexity if it is not linear.