A method like WriteChars accepts a string and the number of characters to write to the buffer/xml. A method like WriteString accepts a string only and writes the whole string into the buffer/xml. If my speculation above about the possible relation between WriteChars and WriteString is correct, wouldn't mean it you have to make a copy of the string to the exact size(as specified in the number of characters to write) and then pass that to WriteString but *yes*, get rid of it later?