diff --git a/CHANGELOG.rst b/CHANGELOG.rst
index abe24f4..fbc85fa 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.rst
+++ b/CHANGELOG.rst
@@ -1,6 +1,11 @@
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
 Changelog for package genmsg
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+
+0.5.11 (2018-05-01)
+-------------------
+* use ast.literal_eval instead of eval (`#73 <https://github.com/ros/genmsg/issues/73>`_)
+* fix undefined name in case of exception (`#75 <https://github.com/ros/genmsg/issues/75>`_)
 
 0.5.10 (2018-01-25)
 -------------------
diff --git a/package.xml b/package.xml
index 471c7d8..d33ffe6 100644
--- a/package.xml
+++ b/package.xml
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 <?xml version="1.0"?>
 <package>
   <name>genmsg</name>
-  <version>0.5.10</version>
+  <version>0.5.11</version>
   <description>
     Standalone Python library for generating ROS message and service data structures for various languages.
   </description>
diff --git a/src/genmsg/msg_loader.py b/src/genmsg/msg_loader.py
index bb9351a..7425fbf 100644
--- a/src/genmsg/msg_loader.py
+++ b/src/genmsg/msg_loader.py
@@ -39,6 +39,7 @@
 possible layouts.
 """
 
+import ast
 import os
 import sys
 
@@ -181,8 +182,7 @@
             raise InvalidMsgSpec("cannot coerce [%s] to %s (out of bounds)"%(val, field_type))
         return val
     elif field_type == 'bool':
-        # TODO: need to nail down constant spec for bool
-        return True if eval(val) else False
+        return True if ast.literal_eval(val) else False
     raise InvalidMsgSpec("invalid constant type: [%s]"%field_type)
 
 def _load_constant_line(orig_line):
@@ -203,7 +203,7 @@
     else:
         line_splits = [x.strip() for x in ' '.join(line_splits[1:]).split(CONSTCHAR)] #resplit on '='
         if len(line_splits) != 2:
-            raise InvalidMsgSpec("Invalid constant declaration: %s"%l)
+            raise InvalidMsgSpec("Invalid constant declaration: %s"%orig_line)
         name = line_splits[0]
         val = line_splits[1]