diff --git a/include/libtorrent/utf8.hpp b/include/libtorrent/utf8.hpp
index ef783a970..8fafc12ee 100644
--- a/include/libtorrent/utf8.hpp
+++ b/include/libtorrent/utf8.hpp
@@ -78,7 +78,7 @@ namespace libtorrent {
 
 	// TODO: 3 take a string_view here
 	TORRENT_EXTRA_EXPORT std::pair<std::int32_t, int>
-		parse_utf8_codepoint(char const* str, int len);
+		parse_utf8_codepoint(string_view str);
 }
 
 #endif
diff --git a/src/torrent_info.cpp b/src/torrent_info.cpp
index 0508c06dc..faf2ba692 100644
--- a/src/torrent_info.cpp
+++ b/src/torrent_info.cpp
@@ -236,8 +236,7 @@ namespace libtorrent {
 		for (std::size_t i = 0; i < element.size(); i += std::size_t(seq_len))
 		{
 			std::int32_t code_point;
-			std::tie(code_point, seq_len) = parse_utf8_codepoint(element.data() + i
-				, int(element.size() - i));
+			std::tie(code_point, seq_len) = parse_utf8_codepoint(element.substr(i));
 
 			if (code_point >= 0 && filter_path_character(code_point))
 			{
diff --git a/src/utf8.cpp b/src/utf8.cpp
index 1224aec5b..b99e91f1b 100644
--- a/src/utf8.cpp
+++ b/src/utf8.cpp
@@ -267,17 +267,17 @@ namespace {
 
 	// returns the unicode codepoint and the number of bytes of the utf8 sequence
 	// that was parsed. The codepoint is -1 if it's invalid
-	std::pair<std::int32_t, int> parse_utf8_codepoint(char const* str, int const len)
+	std::pair<std::int32_t, int> parse_utf8_codepoint(string_view str)
 	{
-		int const sequence_len = trailingBytesForUTF8[static_cast<std::uint8_t>(*str)] + 1;
-		if (sequence_len > len) return std::make_pair(-1, len);
+		int const sequence_len = trailingBytesForUTF8[static_cast<std::uint8_t>(str[0])] + 1;
+		if (sequence_len > int(str.size())) return std::make_pair(-1, static_cast<int>(str.size()));
 
 		if (sequence_len > 4)
 		{
 			return std::make_pair(-1, sequence_len);
 		}
 
-		if (!isLegalUTF8(reinterpret_cast<UTF8 const*>(str), sequence_len))
+		if (!isLegalUTF8(reinterpret_cast<UTF8 const*>(str.data()), sequence_len))
 		{
 			return std::make_pair(-1, sequence_len);
 		}
@@ -286,7 +286,7 @@ namespace {
 		for (int i = 0; i < sequence_len; ++i)
 		{
 			ch <<= 6;
-			ch += static_cast<std::uint8_t>(str[i]);
+			ch += static_cast<std::uint8_t>(str[static_cast<std::size_t>(i)]);
 		}
 		ch -= offsetsFromUTF8[sequence_len-1];