If std::string construction was the goal then sure, but that's not what the original benchmark that I've written was about. The goal was to find the fastest way to format an integer with or without std::string construction: http://www.zverovich.net/2013/09/07/integer-to-string-conver.... Those methods that construct a string but not required to are explicitly marked. The OP made some claims based on the method that doesn't construct std::string (which is one of the reasons it's rather fast) and then when I pointed out that it's unsafe switched to a much slower one but at the same time unnecessarily penalized other methods. It seems like moving a goalpost just to prove that your method is the fastest (which might be true but we don't know because of a poor methodology).