* Add basic support for tag-based static polymorphism
Sometimes it is possible to look at a C++ object and know what its dynamic type is,
even if it doesn't use C++ polymorphism, because instances of the object and its
subclasses conform to some other mechanism for being self-describing; for example,
perhaps there's an enumerated "tag" or "kind" member in the base class that's always
set to an indication of the correct type. This might be done for performance reasons,
or to permit most-derived types to be trivially copyable. One of the most widely-known
examples is in LLVM: https://llvm.org/docs/HowToSetUpLLVMStyleRTTI.html
This PR permits pybind11 to be informed of such conventions via a new specializable
detail::polymorphic_type_hook<> template, which generalizes the previous logic for
determining the runtime type of an object based on C++ RTTI. Implementors provide
a way to map from a base class object to a const std::type_info* for the dynamic
type; pybind11 then uses this to ensure that casting a Base* to Python creates a
Python object that knows it's wrapping the appropriate sort of Derived.
There are a number of restrictions with this tag-based static polymorphism support
compared to pybind11's existing support for built-in C++ polymorphism:
- there is no support for this-pointer adjustment, so only single inheritance is permitted
- there is no way to make C++ code call new Python-provided subclasses
- when binding C++ classes that redefine a method in a subclass, the .def() must be
repeated in the binding for Python to know about the update
But these are not much of an issue in practice in many cases, the impact on the
complexity of pybind11's innards is minimal and localized, and the support for
automatic downcasting improves usability a great deal.
The main point of `py::module_local` is to make the C++ -> Python cast
unique so that returning/casting a C++ instance is well-defined.
Unfortunately it also makes loading unique, but this isn't particularly
desirable: when an instance contains `Type` instance there's no reason
it shouldn't be possible to pass that instance to a bound function
taking a `Type` parameter, even if that function is in another module.
This commit solves the issue by allowing foreign module (and global)
type loaders have a chance to load the value if the local module loader
fails. The implementation here does this by storing a module-local
loading function in a capsule in the python type, which we can then call
if the local (and possibly global, if the local type is masking a global
type) version doesn't work.
This allows you to use:
cls.def(py::init(&factory_function));
where `factory_function` returns a pointer, holder, or value of the
class type (or a derived type). Various compile-time checks
(static_asserts) are performed to ensure the function is valid, and
various run-time type checks where necessary.
Some other details of this feature:
- The `py::init` name doesn't conflict with the templated no-argument
`py::init<...>()`, but keeps the naming consistent: the existing
templated, no-argument one wraps constructors, the no-template,
function-argument one wraps factory functions.
- If returning a CppClass (whether by value or pointer) when an CppAlias
is required (i.e. python-side inheritance and a declared alias), a
dynamic_cast to the alias is attempted (for the pointer version); if
it fails, or if returned by value, an Alias(Class &&) constructor
is invoked. If this constructor doesn't exist, a runtime error occurs.
- for holder returns when an alias is required, we try a dynamic_cast of
the wrapped pointer to the alias to see if it is already an alias
instance; if it isn't, we raise an error.
- `py::init(class_factory, alias_factory)` is also available that takes
two factories: the first is called when an alias is not needed, the
second when it is.
- Reimplement factory instance clearing. The previous implementation
failed under python-side multiple inheritance: *each* inherited
type's factory init would clear the instance instead of only setting
its own type value. The new implementation here clears just the
relevant value pointer.
- dealloc is updated to explicitly set the leftover value pointer to
nullptr and the `holder_constructed` flag to false so that it can be
used to clear preallocated value without needing to rebuild the
instance internals data.
- Added various tests to test out new allocation/deallocation code.
- With preallocation now done lazily, init factory holders can
completely avoid the extra overhead of needing an extra
allocation/deallocation.
- Updated documentation to make factory constructors the default
advanced constructor style.
- If an `__init__` is called a second time, we have two choices: we can
throw away the first instance, replacing it with the second; or we can
ignore the second call. The latter is slightly easier, so do that.
Attempting to mix py::module_local and non-module_local classes results
in some unexpected/undesirable behaviour:
- if a class is registered non-local by some other module, a later
attempt to register it locally fails. It doesn't need to: it is
perfectly acceptable for the local registration to simply override
the external global registration.
- going the other way (i.e. module `A` registers a type `T` locally,
then `B` registers the same type `T` globally) causes a more serious
issue: `A.T`'s constructors no longer work because the `self` argument
gets converted to a `B.T`, which then fails to resolve.
Changing the cast precedence to prefer local over global fixes this and
makes it work more consistently, regardless of module load order.
This commit adds a `py::module_local` attribute that lets you confine a
registered type to the module (more technically, the shared object) in
which it is defined, by registering it with:
py::class_<C>(m, "C", py::module_local())
This will allow the same C++ class `C` to be registered in different
modules with independent sets of class definitions. On the Python side,
two such types will be completely distinct; on the C++ side, the C++
type resolves to a different Python type in each module.
This applies `py::module_local` automatically to `stl_bind.h` bindings
when the container value type looks like something global: i.e. when it
is a converting type (for example, when binding a `std::vector<int>`),
or when it is a registered type itself bound with `py::module_local`.
This should help resolve potential future conflicts (e.g. if two
completely unrelated modules both try to bind a `std::vector<int>`.
Users can override the automatic selection by adding a
`py::module_local()` or `py::module_local(false)`.
Note that this does mildly break backwards compatibility: bound stl
containers of basic types like `std::vector<int>` cannot be bound in one
module and returned in a different module. (This can be re-enabled with
`py::module_local(false)` as described above, but with the potential for
eventual load conflicts).
This commit allows multiple inheritance of pybind11 classes from
Python, e.g.
class MyType(Base1, Base2):
def __init__(self):
Base1.__init__(self)
Base2.__init__(self)
where Base1 and Base2 are pybind11-exported classes.
This requires collapsing the various builtin base objects
(pybind11_object_56, ...) introduced in 2.1 into a single
pybind11_object of a fixed size; this fixed size object allocates enough
space to contain either a simple object (one base class & small* holder
instance), or a pointer to a new allocation that can contain an
arbitrary number of base classes and holders, with holder size
unrestricted.
* "small" here means having a sizeof() of at most 2 pointers, which is
enough to fit unique_ptr (sizeof is 1 ptr) and shared_ptr (sizeof is 2
ptrs).
To minimize the performance impact, this repurposes
`internals::registered_types_py` to store a vector of pybind-registered
base types. For direct-use pybind types (e.g. the `PyA` for a C++ `A`)
this is simply storing the same thing as before, but now in a vector;
for Python-side inherited types, the map lets us avoid having to do a
base class traversal as long as we've seen the class before. The
change to vector is needed for multiple inheritance: Python types
inheriting from multiple registered bases have one entry per base.
This commit also adds `doc()` to `object_api` as a shortcut for the
`attr("__doc__")` accessor.
The module macro changes from:
```c++
PYBIND11_PLUGIN(example) {
pybind11::module m("example", "pybind11 example plugin");
m.def("add", [](int a, int b) { return a + b; });
return m.ptr();
}
```
to:
```c++
PYBIND11_MODULE(example, m) {
m.doc() = "pybind11 example plugin";
m.def("add", [](int a, int b) { return a + b; });
}
```
Using the old macro results in a deprecation warning. The warning
actually points to the `pybind11_init` function (since attributes
don't bind to macros), but the message should be quite clear:
"PYBIND11_PLUGIN is deprecated, use PYBIND11_MODULE".
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.
