Index: Tools/gdb/libpython.py
===================================================================
--- Tools/gdb/libpython.py	(revision 82626)
+++ Tools/gdb/libpython.py	(working copy)
@@ -1035,8 +1035,9 @@
 
     def write_repr(self, out, visited):
         proxy = self.proxyval(visited)
-        if self.char_width() == 2:
-            # sizeof(Py_UNICODE)==2: join surrogates
+        if self.char_width() == 2 and sys.maxunicode == 0x10ffff:
+            # sizeof(Py_UNICODE) is 2 in the inferior process and 4 in the gdb
+            # process: join surrogates
             proxy2 = []
             i = 0
             while i < len(proxy):