Now that only one shared metaclass is ever allocated, it's extremely
cheap to enable it for all pybind11 types.
* Deprecate the default py::metaclass() since it's not needed anymore.
* Allow users to specify a custom metaclass via py::metaclass(handle).
This adds support for controlling the `convert` flag of arguments
through the py::arg annotation. This then allows arguments to be
flagged as non-converting, which the type_caster is able to use to
request different behaviour.
Currently, AFAICS `convert` is only used for type converters of regular
pybind11-registered types; all of the other core type_casters ignore it.
We can, however, repurpose it to control internal conversion of
converters like Eigen and `array`: most usefully to give callers a way
to disable the conversion that would otherwise occur when a
`Eigen::Ref<const Eigen::Matrix>` argument is passed a numpy array that
requires conversion (either because it has an incompatible stride or the
wrong dtype).
Specifying a noconvert looks like one of these:
m.def("f1", &f, "a"_a.noconvert() = "default"); // Named, default, noconvert
m.def("f2", &f, "a"_a.noconvert()); // Named, no default, no converting
m.def("f3", &f, py::arg().noconvert()); // Unnamed, no default, no converting
(The last part--being able to declare a py::arg without a name--is new:
previous py::arg() only accepted named keyword arguments).
Such an non-convert argument is then passed `convert = false` by the
type caster when loading the argument. Whether this has an effect is up
to the type caster itself, but as mentioned above, this would be
extremely helpful for the Eigen support to give a nicer way to specify
a "no-copy" mode than the custom wrapper in the current PR, and
moreover isn't an Eigen-specific hack.
* Some clarifications to section on virtual fns
Primarily, I made it clear that PYBIND11_OVERLOAD_PURE_NAME is not "useful" but required in renaming situations. Also clarified that one should not bind to the trampoline helper class which I found tempting since it seems more explicit.
* Remove :emphasize-lines: from cpp block, seems to suppress formatting
* docs: emphasize default policy, clarify keep_alive
Emphasize the default return value policy since this statement is hidden in a wall of text.
Add a hint that call policies are probably required for container objects.
This commit includes modifications that are needed to get pybind11 to work with PyPy. The full test suite compiles and runs except for a last few functions that are commented out (due to problems in PyPy that were reported on the PyPy bugtracker).
Two somewhat intrusive changes were needed to make it possible: two new tags ``py::buffer_protocol()`` and ``py::metaclass()`` must now be specified to the ``class_`` constructor if the class uses the buffer protocol and/or requires a metaclass (e.g. for static properties).
Note that this is only for the PyPy version based on Python 2.7 for now. When the PyPy 3.x has caught up in terms of cpyext compliance, a PyPy 3.x patch will follow.
