Update R handles in-place (#6903)

* update R handles in-place #fixes 6896

* update test to expect non-null handle

* remove unused variable

* fix failing tests

* solve linter complains

R-package/R/xgb.unserialize.R

@@ -1,11 +1,21 @@
 #' Load the instance back from \code{\link{xgb.serialize}}
 #'
 #' @param buffer the buffer containing booster instance saved by \code{\link{xgb.serialize}}
+#' @param handle An \code{xgb.Booster.handle} object which will be overwritten with
+#' the new deserialized object. Must be a null handle (e.g. when loading the model through
+#' `readRDS`). If not provided, a new handle will be created.
+#' @return An \code{xgb.Booster.handle} object.
 #'
 #' @export
-xgb.unserialize <- function(buffer) {
+xgb.unserialize <- function(buffer, handle = NULL) {
   cachelist <- list()
-  handle <- .Call(XGBoosterCreate_R, cachelist)
+  if (is.null(handle)) {
+    handle <- .Call(XGBoosterCreate_R, cachelist)
+  } else {
+    if (!is.null.handle(handle))
+      stop("'handle' is not null/empty. Cannot overwrite existing handle.")
+    .Call(XGBoosterCreateInEmptyObj_R, cachelist, handle)
+  }
   tryCatch(
     .Call(XGBoosterUnserializeFromBuffer_R, handle, buffer),
     error = function(e) {