Fix TypeError when version is shadowed by import in conf.py

[aryansk]

Problem

When conf.py does from importlib.metadata import version, the configuration value version is shadowed by the imported function. The inventory dump (sphinx/util/inventory.py:InventoryFile.dump) then fails with:

TypeError: expected string or bytes-like object

at re.sub(r'\s+', ' ', env.config.version) because env.config.version is a function, not a string. The build emits build-finished with this exception and objects.inv is not written correctly.

Example conf.py:

from importlib.metadata import version
project = 'test'
release = '1.0.0'
# version is now the function, not a string

Fixes #13879

Change

Make InventoryFile.dump robust to non-string version/project:

• escape() now coerces non-string input via str() (or empty string for None)
• If version is not a string, fall back to release when release is a string, otherwise to "" (per maintainer suggestion in Shadowing version in conf.py with an import causes an error in intersphinx #13879 (comment))
• Similarly handle project when not a string

Single-file, narrow fix in sphinx/util/inventory.py.

Why this approach

The config values project, version, release are expected to be strings. Shadowing by an import is a user error, but it should not crash the build with a TypeError; it should warn (Sphinx already warns The config value 'version' has type 'function'; expected 'str'.) and write a valid inventory. Falling back to release for version matches the maintainer's suggestion and preserves the most useful version information.

Testing

Reproduction with shadowed version:

command: uv run --project /tmp/sphinx-l9-13879/repo python /tmp/test_sphinx_version_shadow.py
result: Build succeeded, objects.inv contains "# Version: 1.0.0" (fallback to release), warning about version type, no TypeError

Existing inventory tests:

command: uv run --project /tmp/sphinx-l9-13879/repo pytest /tmp/sphinx-l9-13879/repo/tests -k inventory -v
result: 11 passed, 1 skipped

Documentation and release impact

• No documentation impact (bug fix)
• Changelog needed — will add if maintainer requests

Review notes

• Follow-up: none
• Security: no

AI disclosure

Muse Spark assisted in analysis and fix drafting; all changes manually reviewed and tested. The contributor understands and can explain the submitted code.