diff --git a/ChangeLog b/ChangeLog
index b02dd1b71..f38a548ee 100644
--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -1,3 +1,11 @@
+2014-02-05  Werner Lemberg  <wl@gnu.org>
+
+	Fix problems with perl 5.8.8 as distributed with current MinGW.
+
+	* src/tools/afblue.pl: Work-around for Perl bug #63402.
+	(string_re): Avoid `possessive quantifiers', which have been
+	introduced in Perl version 5.10.
+
 2014-02-04  Werner Lemberg  <wl@gnu.org>
 
 	Fix compilation with MinGW.
diff --git a/src/tools/afblue.pl b/src/tools/afblue.pl
index 33bba1ed7..58aa2a055 100644
--- a/src/tools/afblue.pl
+++ b/src/tools/afblue.pl
@@ -71,7 +71,7 @@ my $whitespace_only_re = qr/ ^ \s* $ /x;
 
 # [<ws>] '"' <string> '"' [<ws>] '\n'  (<string> doesn't contain newlines)
 my $string_re = qr/ ^ \s*
-                       " ( (?: [^"\\]++ | \\. )*+ ) "
+                       " ( (?> (?: (?> [^"\\]+ ) | \\. )* ) ) "
                        \s* $ /x;
 
 # [<ws>] '{' <block> '}' [<ws>] '\n'  (<block> can contain newlines)