In order to fully satisfy Python's inheritance type layout requirements,
all types should have a common 'solid' base. A solid base is one which
has the same instance size as the derived type (not counting the space
required for the optional `dict_ptr` and `weakrefs_ptr`). Thus, `object`
does not qualify as a solid base for pybind11 types and this can lead to
issues with multiple inheritance.
To get around this, new base types are created: one per unique instance
size. There is going to be very few of these bases. They ensure Python's
MRO checks will pass when multiple bases are involved.
Allows checking the Python types before creating an object instead of
after. For example:
```c++
auto l = list(ptr, true);
if (l.check())
// ...
```
The above is replaced with:
```c++
if (isinstance<list>(ptr)) {
auto l = reinterpret_borrow(ptr);
// ...
}
```
This deprecates `py::object::check()`. `py::isinstance()` covers the
same use case, but it can also check for user-defined types:
```c++
class Pet { ... };
py::class_<Pet>(...);
m.def("is_pet", [](py::object obj) {
return py::isinstance<Pet>(obj); // works as expected
});
```
The current inheritance testing isn't sufficient to detect a cache
failure; the test added here breaks PR #390, which caches the
run-time-determined return type the first time a function is called,
then reuses that cached type even though the run-time type could be
different for a future call.
This allows a slightly cleaner base type specification of:
py::class_<Type, Base>("Type")
as an alternative to
py::class_<Type>("Type", py::base<Base>())
As with the other template parameters, the order relative to the holder
or trampoline types doesn't matter.
This also includes a compile-time assertion failure if attempting to
specify more than one base class (but is easily extendible to support
multiple inheritance, someday, by updating the class_selector::set_bases
function to set multiple bases).
Use simple asserts and pytest's powerful introspection to make testing
simpler. This merges the old .py/.ref file pairs into simple .py files
where the expected values are right next to the code being tested.
This commit does not touch the C++ part of the code and replicates the
Python tests exactly like the old .ref-file-based approach.
