returning a char* from a primitive

Hello,
I am currently struggling to return a string from a platform specific  
primitive. The only example derived from SmartSyntaxInterpreter I was  
able to find in the Squeak sources is primitiveGetStringKeyedBy: in  
InternetConfigPlugin. There the code copies every character of the  
char* into a new String instance. Isn't there a more elegant method  
to do this?

cheers
Diman