support JSON Merge Patch (RFC 7396) diff creation (#4965)

* support JSON Merge Patch (RFC 7396) diff creation

The JSON merge patch document format describes the set of modifications
to a resource's content, that more closely mimics the syntax of the
resource being modified.

However, and in contrast to JSON Patch (RFC 6902), a JSON Merge Patch
cannot express certain modifications, e.g., changing an array element
at a specific index, or setting a specific object value to null.
The null value in a JSON Merge Patch is used to remove the key from the
object.

The diff algorithm is not part of the RFC 7396, but it was tested
against all examples provided, plus additional cases on how null values
are handled.

Signed-off-by: Luís Murta <luis@murta.dev>

* improve algorithm efficiency

Signed-off-by: Luís Murta <luis@murta.dev>

* fix inconsistent nulls and empty arrays

Also add CHECKs for the patch, documentation and run `make amalgamate`.

Signed-off-by: Luís Murta <luis@murta.dev>

* documentation cleanups

Signed-off-by: Luís Murta <luis@murta.dev>

* add an iterative fallback to merge_diff

Bound the recursion depth like diff() and merge_patch(), and test values
nested past the bound.

Signed-off-by: Luís Murta <luis@murta.dev>

* address the remaining review comments

Signed-off-by: Luís Murta <luis@murta.dev>

* move multi-line raw strings out of CHECK macros

GCC 4.8/5, ICPC and NVHPC mis-tokenize multi-line raw string literals
inside macro arguments, breaking the build or the parsed JSON.

Signed-off-by: Luís Murta <luis@murta.dev>

---------

Signed-off-by: Luís Murta <luis@murta.dev>

docs/mkdocs/docs/features/merge_patch.md

@@ -9,6 +9,9 @@ syntax that closely mimics the document being modified. Unlike [JSON Patch](json
 express every kind of change (e.g., it cannot reorder array elements or remove a specific array element), but it is
 easier to read and write for object-shaped documents.
 
+The function [`merge_diff`](../api/basic_json/merge_diff.md) creates a merge patch that changes one JSON value into
+another.
+
 !!! tip "Not a general deep merge"
 
     A merge patch is not a general deep merge: a `#!json null` value in the patch deletes the key from the target.
@@ -35,4 +38,5 @@ easier to read and write for object-shaped documents.
 - [JSON Patch and Diff](json_patch.md) - a more expressive alternative that describes a sequence of operations
 - [JSON Pointer](json_pointer.md) - the addressing scheme used by JSON Patch
 - Function [`merge_patch`](../api/basic_json/merge_patch.md)
+- Function [`merge_diff`](../api/basic_json/merge_diff.md)
 - Function [`update`](../api/basic_json/update.md) - merge objects, optionally recursively