gh-148798: Fix crash in _interpreters.create() on non-UTF-8 string in config

Lib/test/test_interpreters/test_api.py

@@ -117,6 +117,18 @@ def test_in_main(self):
         # GH-126221: Passing an invalid Unicode character used to cause a SystemError
         self.assertRaises(UnicodeEncodeError, _interpreters.create, '\udc80')
 
+        # A config object with a surrogate in a string field must raise, not crash.
+        class BadConfig:
+            use_main_obmalloc = False
+            allow_fork = False
+            allow_exec = False
+            allow_threads = False
+            allow_daemon_threads = False
+            check_multi_interp_extensions = False
+            own_gil = True
+            gil = 'own\udc80'
+        self.assertRaises(UnicodeEncodeError, _interpreters.create, BadConfig())
+
     def test_in_thread(self):
         lock = threading.Lock()
         interp = None

Misc/NEWS.d/next/Core_and_Builtins/2026-04-20-01-45-00.gh-issue-148798.interpconfig.rst

@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+Fix a crash in :func:`!_interpreters.create` when a config object passes a
+string with an unpaired surrogate as a value (for example ``gil``). The
+internal helper ``_config_dict_copy_str`` now checks the return of
+:c:func:`PyUnicode_AsUTF8` before copying, turning the segfault into a
+:exc:`UnicodeEncodeError`.

Python/interpconfig.c

@@ -133,7 +133,12 @@ _config_dict_copy_str(PyObject *dict, const char *name,
         config_dict_invalid_type(name);
         return -1;
     }
-    strncpy(buf, PyUnicode_AsUTF8(item), bufsize-1);
+    const char *utf8 = PyUnicode_AsUTF8(item);
+    if (utf8 == NULL) {
+        Py_DECREF(item);
+        return -1;
+    }
+    strncpy(buf, utf8, bufsize-1);
     buf[bufsize-1] = '\0';
     Py_DECREF(item);
     return 0;