Enable casting unique_ptr arguments and ownership transfer,

[EricCousineau-TRI]

This PR enables passing unique_ptr back and forth between C++.
This is a refactored, simplified, and more manageable chunk of #1146 (supporting #1132).

This relates #971, #1226.

I'm moving forward with this because we have found this feature useful in Drake, and have a potential mechanism to even allow this to be REPL-friendly. (This change does require minimal changes in existing code, which is preferable to switching to shared_ptr and never being able to release a pointer from its clutches.)
https://github.com/RobotLocomotion/drake/blob/f6f23c5/bindings/pydrake/systems/framework_py.cc#L148
https://github.com/EricCousineau-TRI/pybind11/blob/25b08a4/tests/test_smart_ptr.py#L319

Additional motivation:
Google's clif can handle unique_ptrs as arguments, so it should be possible :)
https://github.com/google/clif/blob/master/clif/python/README.md#pointers-references-and-object-ownership

\cc @torokati44

[EricCousineau-TRI]

After the first portion of this PR, I realized that it wouldn't be too much more to enable unique_ptr as arguments.

Please note that I have curated each of the commits to make sure that each commit makes sense by itself.

This also includes a commit to fix #1238, because I encountered this issue while developing this branch.

[EricCousineau-TRI]

Hmm... CI failures seem possibly unrelated to this PR?

On Travis CI, there are errors where the assertion errors differ by a space.
On AppVeyor, there is a warning about using if constexpr (which I'd really prefer not to, as it's C++17), that I guess is then escalated to an error? (I can patch this with a temporary, but just wondering if this warning should be suppressed?)

May I ask if there are any ideas on the Travis CI NumPy stuff?

EDIT: Looks like Jason handled it here: #1246

[EricCousineau-TRI]

@jagerman Can I ask if you've had a chance to take a peek at this PR? Might you have any suggestions at a design level that might make this fit into a future pybind release?

[kunitoki]

This would be awesome, any chance to get this addressed ?

[rwgk]

This would be awesome, any chance to get this addressed ?

https://github.com/pybind/pybind11/blob/smart_holder/README_smart_holder.rst

The branch exists for ~3 years now (and is used in Google production code since then). The last noteworthy change was in the summer of 2021. I'm keeping it up-to-date with master, and it is fully compatible with master (see the README).

[gentlegiantJGC]

Is this resolved now that the smart holder branch has been merged?

[rwgk]

Is this resolved now that the smart holder branch has been merged?

Yes, I think so, based on just glancing through. Let's close this, since you asked about it.