http://developer.apple.com/documentation/CoreFoundation/Reference/CFStringRef/Reference/chapter_2.1_section_2.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/20001211-DontLinkChapterID_1-F11124

and add any comments here…

some simple examples http://www.carbondev.com/site/?page=CStrings+

Is this any safer than StringWithCString?

Yep. The problem with methods like -[NSString stringWithCString:] is that they don’t specify encoding. This function does take an encoding argument.