regression from

commit 3cbfcee3
Date:   Sun Feb 2 22:16:48 2014 -0600
    xub_StrLen and tools/string.hxx final straw

    There is still some 0xffff limit left and possibly some
    less than gracefully handled overflow/error cases

Change-Id: I82bdcb6951c42fdcaa68808a251f9b2f76f8ed0b