changelog: make copies related function return None or a valid value With the previous code, existing but empty value were not "decoded", leading to the method returning one of `None`, some valid value (`list` or `dict`) or `b''`. On a general basis, not explicitly checking for None is a source of bugs. Having a clean return types will help the side-data copies code in future changesets. Differential Revision: https://phab.mercurial-scm.org/D7037