To be fair, I guess the separate variable does avoid *any* changes to tpf.c (right?) so I can see the argument for it being the simpler solution.
Yep, the only change required is having to call string_skip_tag() instead of using the name directly in a couple of places (https://gitlab.winehq.org/fcasas/vkd3d/-/commit/28af38f7106c30e3f632310ebe54...).