This patch makes the string manipulation code easier to verify.

Cc: Himanshu Madhani <hmadhani@marvell.com>
Signed-off-by: Bart Van Assche <bvanassche@acm.org>
Tested-by: Himanshu Madhani <hmadhani@marvell.com>
Reviewed-by: Himanshu Madhani <hmadhani@marvell.com>
Signed-off-by: Martin K. Petersen <martin.petersen@oracle.com>