From 6ab2ff6a45ccc22a63f5f2b8759380f42835f5ff Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Ruben Bridgewater <ruben.bridgewater@datadoghq.com>
Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2025 19:27:38 +0200
Subject: [PATCH] util: inspect objects with throwing Symbol.toStringTag

`util.inspect()` should handle all kinds of input, even if it is
not well defined. Throwing is something that is meant to be worked
around in all known cases. This fixes issues inspecting objects
where accessing the Symbol.toStringTag would cause an error. The
symbol is just ignored in that case.

Refs: https://github.com/nodejs/node/issues/55539
Refs: https://github.com/nodejs/node/pull/55544
---
 lib/internal/util/inspect.js       | 9 ++++++++-
 test/parallel/test-util-inspect.js | 8 ++++++--
 2 files changed, 14 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

diff --git a/lib/internal/util/inspect.js b/lib/internal/util/inspect.js
index 93301ca8ddfd45..0cd2bcdfab0028 100644
--- a/lib/internal/util/inspect.js
+++ b/lib/internal/util/inspect.js
@@ -1186,7 +1186,14 @@ function formatRaw(ctx, value, recurseTimes, typedArray) {
     protoProps = undefined;
   }
 
-  let tag = value[SymbolToStringTag];
+  let tag = '';
+
+  try {
+    tag = value[SymbolToStringTag];
+  } catch {
+    // Ignore error.
+  }
+
   // Only list the tag in case it's non-enumerable / not an own property.
   // Otherwise we'd print this twice.
   if (typeof tag !== 'string' ||
diff --git a/test/parallel/test-util-inspect.js b/test/parallel/test-util-inspect.js
index b26309bb66abd8..0faa2a0058e79d 100644
--- a/test/parallel/test-util-inspect.js
+++ b/test/parallel/test-util-inspect.js
@@ -1646,7 +1646,7 @@ util.inspect(process);
     }
   }
 
-  assert.throws(() => util.inspect(new ThrowingClass()), /toStringTag error/);
+  assert.strictEqual(util.inspect(new ThrowingClass()), 'ThrowingClass {}');
 
   const y = {
     get [Symbol.toStringTag]() {
@@ -1655,7 +1655,11 @@ util.inspect(process);
   };
   const x = { y };
   y.x = x;
-  assert.throws(() => util.inspect(x), /TypeError: Converting circular structure to JSON/);
+
+  assert.strictEqual(
+    util.inspect(x),
+    '<ref *1> {\n  y: { x: [Circular *1], Symbol(Symbol.toStringTag): [Getter] }\n}'
+  );
 
   class NotStringClass {
     get [Symbol.toStringTag]() {