RFC: iter_changes and content changes

[Robert Collins]

So iter_changes is great for status. But its not enough for diff, or
patch.

I'd like to be able to throw a single iterator at
CommitBuilder.record_iter_changes, which would output *both* the
metadata change list *and* patches for the changes.

For instance, iter_changes outputs:
(file_id, (path_in_source, path_in_target),
 changed_content, versioned, parent, name, kind,
 executable)

If we added a field - content_delta to that, it would do what I want.
That would probably be controlled by a parameter asking for it.

What I'd like, ideally, is to be able to ask a repository to accept a
change which contains such a patch, against an arbitrary revision; this
would (if serialised) allow changes to large files to be streamed to a
server, without having to have the server call-back to the client for a
diff (such callbacks are ugly).

*if* we had that, the commit-to-a-different-branch use case would be as
simple as:
builder = other_branch.get_commit_builder()
builder.record_iter_changes(tree.iter_changes(tree.basis_tree(),
with_patches=True), tree.parents[0])
builder.finish_inventory()
builder.commit()

- and I'd *love* that.

-Rob

-- 
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