[SP-1082] Backport of [PDI-11269]

NPE when date format locale is null causing carte cluster trans to fail

cherry-pick: https://github.com/pentaho-skarmali/pentaho-kettle/commit/ecce0a6af69b5d54050a0413aaedc11c3e5ff6a0
issue: http://jira.pentaho.com/browse/SP-1082
Merge pull request #306 from hudak/SP-1082

[SP-1082] Backport of [PDI-11269]
SP-983 backport of PDI-11082
[SP-998]: Backport of PDI-9848 - Mappings destroy metadata (when the Mapping input specification does not include all fields) (5.0)

There are fix and unit tests.
Merge pull request #353 from TatsianaKasiankova/SP-998

[SP-998]: Backport of PDI-9848 - Mappings destroy metadata (when the Mapping input specification does not include all fields) (5.0)
Merge pull request #317 from dbahdano/SP-983

SP-983 Backport of PDI-11082
SP-984 - Regression of PDI-11103 - Performance of Sort Rows step in 5.0 (5.0)

junit tests added
Conflicts:
	test/org/pentaho/di/TestUtilities.java
	test/org/pentaho/di/trans/steps/sort/SortRowsTest.java
SP-984 - Regression of PDI-11103 - Performance of Sort Rows step in 5.0 (5.0)

checkstyle applyed
SP-984 - Regression of PDI-11103 - Performance of Sort Rows step in 5.0 (5.0)

PDI-11103 - Performance of Sort Rows step in 5.0

refactor existing code, perfomance restored.
Conflicts:
	engine/src/org/pentaho/di/trans/steps/sort/SortRows.java
	engine/src/org/pentaho/di/trans/steps/sort/SortRowsData.java