writing variable length strings gets a null terminator

lib/bufferstream/bufferstream.cpp

@@ -390,18 +390,18 @@ void bufferstream::readString(std::string &str, const int fixed_length, const bo
  * @param str
  * @param fixed_length write this length to the stream, padding with null
  *        if str is shorter than fixed_length.  If 0, will write the unrestricted
- *        contents of str.
+ *        contents of str, including it's null termination.
  * @param terminated If true, the last byte of fixed_length is guaranteed to
  *        be a 0 (null) byte.
  */
 void bufferstream::writeString(const std::string &str, const size_t fixed_length,
-                             const bool terminated)
+                               const bool terminated)
 {
     // fixed_length == 0 means dynamic length.
     bool fixed = fixed_length > 0 ? true : false;
 
     // fixed length strings restricted to fixed_lengh characters
-    size_t maxlen = fixed ? fixed_length : str.size();
+    size_t maxlen = fixed ? fixed_length : str.size() + 1; // null terminated
 
     // write no more of the string than is available
     size_t wrtlen = str.size() < maxlen ? str.size() : maxlen;