diff --git a/org.eclipse.jgit/src/org/eclipse/jgit/treewalk/AbstractTreeIterator.java b/org.eclipse.jgit/src/org/eclipse/jgit/treewalk/AbstractTreeIterator.java
index 335abe1b5..a3c93cf87 100644
--- a/org.eclipse.jgit/src/org/eclipse/jgit/treewalk/AbstractTreeIterator.java
+++ b/org.eclipse.jgit/src/org/eclipse/jgit/treewalk/AbstractTreeIterator.java
@@ -239,12 +239,10 @@ public abstract class AbstractTreeIterator {
 		path = p.path;
 		pathOffset = p.pathLen + 1;
 
-		try {
-			path[pathOffset - 1] = '/';
-		} catch (ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException e) {
+		if (pathOffset > path.length) {
 			growPath(p.pathLen);
-			path[pathOffset - 1] = '/';
 		}
+		path[pathOffset - 1] = '/';
 	}
 
 	/**
diff --git a/org.eclipse.jgit/src/org/eclipse/jgit/treewalk/CanonicalTreeParser.java b/org.eclipse.jgit/src/org/eclipse/jgit/treewalk/CanonicalTreeParser.java
index 019968875..b2d8fc3aa 100644
--- a/org.eclipse.jgit/src/org/eclipse/jgit/treewalk/CanonicalTreeParser.java
+++ b/org.eclipse.jgit/src/org/eclipse/jgit/treewalk/CanonicalTreeParser.java
@@ -387,14 +387,13 @@ public class CanonicalTreeParser extends AbstractTreeIterator {
 		tmp = pathOffset;
 		for (;; tmp++) {
 			c = raw[ptr++];
-			if (c == 0)
+			if (c == 0) {
 				break;
-			try {
-				path[tmp] = c;
-			} catch (ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException e) {
+			}
+			if (tmp >= path.length) {
 				growPath(tmp);
-				path[tmp] = c;
 			}
+			path[tmp] = c;
 		}
 		pathLen = tmp;
 		nextPtr = ptr + OBJECT_ID_LENGTH;