Fix unbound C recursion in Element.__deepcopy__()

Author: StanFromIreland

Lib/test/test_xml_etree.py

@@ -3190,6 +3190,19 @@ def __deepcopy__(self, memo):
         self.assertEqual([c.tag for c in children[3:]],
                          [a.tag, b.tag, a.tag, b.tag])
 
+    @support.skip_if_unlimited_stack_size
+    @support.skip_emscripten_stack_overflow()
+    @support.skip_wasi_stack_overflow()
+    def test_deeply_nested_deepcopy(self):
+        # This should raise a RecursionError and not crash.
+        # See https://github.com/python/cpython/issues/148801.
+        root = cur = ET.Element('s')
+        for _ in range(50_000):
+            cur = ET.SubElement(cur, 'u')
+        with support.infinite_recursion():
+            with self.assertRaises(RecursionError):
+                copy.deepcopy(root)
+
 
 class MutationDeleteElementPath(str):
     def __new__(cls, elem, *args):

Misc/NEWS.d/next/Library/2026-04-20-18-29-21.gh-issue-148801.ROeNqs.rst

@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+:mod:`xml.etree.ElementTree`: Fix a crash in :meth:`Element.__deepcopy__
+<object.__deepcopy__>` on deeply nested trees.

Modules/_elementtree.c

@@ -16,6 +16,7 @@
 #endif
 
 #include "Python.h"
+#include "pycore_ceval.h"         // _Py_EnterRecursiveCall()
 #include "pycore_dict.h"          // _PyDict_CopyAsDict()
 #include "pycore_pyhash.h"        // _Py_HashSecret
 #include "pycore_tuple.h"         // _PyTuple_FromPair
@@ -818,18 +819,25 @@ _elementtree_Element___deepcopy___impl(ElementObject *self, PyObject *memo)
     PyObject* tail;
     PyObject* id;
 
+    if (_Py_EnterRecursiveCall(" in Element.__deepcopy__")) {
+        return NULL;
+    }
+
     PyTypeObject *tp = Py_TYPE(self);
     elementtreestate *st = get_elementtree_state_by_type(tp);
     // The deepcopy() helper takes care of incrementing the refcount
     // of the object to copy so to avoid use-after-frees.
     tag = deepcopy(st, self->tag, memo);
-    if (!tag)
+    if (!tag) {
+        _Py_LeaveRecursiveCall();
         return NULL;
+    }
 
     if (self->extra && self->extra->attrib) {
         attrib = deepcopy(st, self->extra->attrib, memo);
         if (!attrib) {
             Py_DECREF(tag);
+            _Py_LeaveRecursiveCall();
             return NULL;
         }
     } else {
@@ -841,8 +849,10 @@ _elementtree_Element___deepcopy___impl(ElementObject *self, PyObject *memo)
     Py_DECREF(tag);
     Py_XDECREF(attrib);
 
-    if (!element)
+    if (!element) {
+        _Py_LeaveRecursiveCall();
         return NULL;
+    }
 
     text = deepcopy(st, JOIN_OBJ(self->text), memo);
     if (!text)
@@ -904,9 +914,11 @@ _elementtree_Element___deepcopy___impl(ElementObject *self, PyObject *memo)
     if (i < 0)
         goto error;
 
+    _Py_LeaveRecursiveCall();
     return (PyObject*) element;
 
   error:
+    _Py_LeaveRecursiveCall();
     Py_DECREF(element);
     return NULL;
 }