diff --git a/src/Buffer.test.ts b/src/Buffer.test.ts
index 153b6f15..11577707 100644
--- a/src/Buffer.test.ts
+++ b/src/Buffer.test.ts
@@ -357,7 +357,7 @@ describe('Buffer', () => {
     it('multiline ascii', () => {
       const input = 'This is ASCII text spanning multiple lines.';
       terminal.writeSync(input);
-      const s = terminal.buffer.contents(true).toArray()[0];
+      const s = terminal.buffer.contents(true).next().content;
       assert.equal(input, s);
       for (let i = 0; i < input.length; ++i) {
         const bufferIndex = terminal.buffer.stringIndexToBufferIndex(0, i);
@@ -368,7 +368,7 @@ describe('Buffer', () => {
     it('combining e\u0301 in a sentence', () => {
       const input = 'Sitting in the cafe\u0301 drinking coffee.';
       terminal.writeSync(input);
-      const s = terminal.buffer.contents(true).toArray()[0];
+      const s = terminal.buffer.contents(true).next().content;
       assert.equal(input, s);
       for (let i = 0; i < 19; ++i) {
         const bufferIndex = terminal.buffer.stringIndexToBufferIndex(0, i);
@@ -388,7 +388,7 @@ describe('Buffer', () => {
     it('multiline combining e\u0301', () => {
       const input = 'e\u0301e\u0301e\u0301e\u0301e\u0301e\u0301e\u0301e\u0301e\u0301e\u0301e\u0301e\u0301e\u0301e\u0301e\u0301';
       terminal.writeSync(input);
-      const s = terminal.buffer.contents(true).toArray()[0];
+      const s = terminal.buffer.contents(true).next().content;
       assert.equal(input, s);
       // every buffer cell index contains 2 string indices
       for (let i = 0; i < input.length; ++i) {
@@ -400,7 +400,7 @@ describe('Buffer', () => {
     it('surrogate char in a sentence', () => {
       const input = 'The 𝄞 is a clef widely used in modern notation.';
       terminal.writeSync(input);
-      const s = terminal.buffer.contents(true).toArray()[0];
+      const s = terminal.buffer.contents(true).next().content;
       assert.equal(input, s);
       for (let i = 0; i < 5; ++i) {
         const bufferIndex = terminal.buffer.stringIndexToBufferIndex(0, i);
@@ -420,7 +420,7 @@ describe('Buffer', () => {
     it('multiline surrogate char', () => {
       const input = '𝄞𝄞𝄞𝄞𝄞𝄞𝄞𝄞𝄞𝄞𝄞𝄞𝄞𝄞𝄞𝄞𝄞𝄞𝄞𝄞𝄞𝄞𝄞𝄞𝄞𝄞𝄞';
       terminal.writeSync(input);
-      const s = terminal.buffer.contents(true).toArray()[0];
+      const s = terminal.buffer.contents(true).next().content;
       assert.equal(input, s);
       // every buffer cell index contains 2 string indices
       for (let i = 0; i < input.length; ++i) {
@@ -433,7 +433,7 @@ describe('Buffer', () => {
       // eye of Ra with acute accent - string length of 3
       const input = '𓂀\u0301 - the eye hiroglyph with an acute accent.';
       terminal.writeSync(input);
-      const s = terminal.buffer.contents(true).toArray()[0];
+      const s = terminal.buffer.contents(true).next().content;
       assert.equal(input, s);
       // index 0..2 should map to 0
       assert.deepEqual([0, 0], terminal.buffer.stringIndexToBufferIndex(0, 1));
@@ -447,7 +447,7 @@ describe('Buffer', () => {
     it('multiline surrogate with combining', () => {
       const input = '𓂀\u0301𓂀\u0301𓂀\u0301𓂀\u0301𓂀\u0301𓂀\u0301𓂀\u0301𓂀\u0301𓂀\u0301𓂀\u0301𓂀\u0301𓂀\u0301𓂀\u0301𓂀\u0301';
       terminal.writeSync(input);
-      const s = terminal.buffer.contents(true).toArray()[0];
+      const s = terminal.buffer.contents(true).next().content;
       assert.equal(input, s);
       // every buffer cell index contains 3 string indices
       for (let i = 0; i < input.length; ++i) {
@@ -459,7 +459,7 @@ describe('Buffer', () => {
     it('fullwidth chars', () => {
       const input = 'These １２３ are some fat numbers.';
       terminal.writeSync(input);
-      const s = terminal.buffer.contents(true).toArray()[0];
+      const s = terminal.buffer.contents(true).next().content;
       assert.equal(input, s);
       for (let i = 0; i < 6; ++i) {
         const bufferIndex = terminal.buffer.stringIndexToBufferIndex(0, i);
@@ -478,7 +478,7 @@ describe('Buffer', () => {
     it('multiline fullwidth chars', () => {
       const input = '１２３４５６７８９０１２３４５６７８９０';
       terminal.writeSync(input);
-      const s = terminal.buffer.contents(true).toArray()[0];
+      const s = terminal.buffer.contents(true).next().content;
       assert.equal(input, s);
       for (let i = 9; i < input.length; ++i) {
         const bufferIndex = terminal.buffer.stringIndexToBufferIndex(0, i);
@@ -489,7 +489,7 @@ describe('Buffer', () => {
     it('fullwidth combining with emoji - match emoji cell', () => {
       const input = 'Lots of ￥\u0301 make me 😃.';
       terminal.writeSync(input);
-      const s = terminal.buffer.contents(true).toArray()[0];
+      const s = terminal.buffer.contents(true).next().content;
       assert.equal(input, s);
       const stringIndex = s.match(/😃/).index;
       const bufferIndex = terminal.buffer.stringIndexToBufferIndex(0, stringIndex);
diff --git a/src/Buffer.ts b/src/Buffer.ts
index 9c4dcf71..4413b0a7 100644
--- a/src/Buffer.ts
+++ b/src/Buffer.ts
@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@
  */
 
 import { CircularList } from './common/CircularList';
-import { CharData, ITerminal, IBuffer, IBufferLine, BufferIndex, IBufferStringIterator } from './Types';
+import { CharData, ITerminal, IBuffer, IBufferLine, BufferIndex, IBufferStringIterator, IBufferStringIteratorResult } from './Types';
 import { EventEmitter } from './common/EventEmitter';
 import { IMarker } from 'xterm';
 import { BufferLine } from './BufferLine';
@@ -419,7 +419,7 @@ export class BufferStringIterator implements IBufferStringIterator {
     return this._current < this._end;
   }
 
-  public next(withRanges: boolean = false): string | [{first: number, last: number}, string] {
+  public next(): IBufferStringIteratorResult {
     const range = this._buffer.getWrappedRangeForLine(this._current);
     let result = '';
     for (let i = range.first; i <= range.last; ++i) {
@@ -427,14 +427,6 @@ export class BufferStringIterator implements IBufferStringIterator {
       result += this._buffer.translateBufferLineToString(i, (this._trimRight) ? i === range.last : false);
     }
     this._current = range.last + 1;
-    return (withRanges) ? [range, result] : result;
-  }
-
-  public toArray(): string[] {
-    const result = [];
-    while (this.hasNext()) {
-      result.push(this.next() as string);
-    }
-    return result;
+    return {range: range, content: result};
   }
 }
diff --git a/src/Linkifier.ts b/src/Linkifier.ts
index 9ff8b823..cd5cba96 100644
--- a/src/Linkifier.ts
+++ b/src/Linkifier.ts
@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@
  */
 
 import { IMouseZoneManager } from './ui/Types';
-import { ILinkHoverEvent, ILinkMatcher, LinkMatcherHandler, LinkHoverEventTypes, ILinkMatcherOptions, ILinkifier, ITerminal } from './Types';
+import { ILinkHoverEvent, ILinkMatcher, LinkMatcherHandler, LinkHoverEventTypes, ILinkMatcherOptions, ILinkifier, ITerminal, IBufferStringIteratorResult } from './Types';
 import { MouseZone } from './ui/MouseZoneManager';
 import { EventEmitter } from './common/EventEmitter';
 import { CHAR_DATA_ATTR_INDEX } from './Buffer';
@@ -93,9 +93,9 @@ export class Linkifier extends EventEmitter implements ILinkifier {
     // we skip those later in _doLinkifyRow
     const linesIterator = this._terminal.buffer.contents(false, absoluteRowIndexStart, this._terminal.buffer.ydisp + this._rowsToLinkify.end + 1);
     while (linesIterator.hasNext()) {
-      const lineData: any = linesIterator.next(true);
+      const lineData: IBufferStringIteratorResult = linesIterator.next();
       for (let i = 0; i < this._linkMatchers.length; i++) {
-        this._doLinkifyRow(lineData[0].first, lineData[1], this._linkMatchers[i]);
+        this._doLinkifyRow(lineData.range.first, lineData.content, this._linkMatchers[i]);
       }
     }
 
diff --git a/src/Types.ts b/src/Types.ts
index 5782f2c9..063eba17 100644
--- a/src/Types.ts
+++ b/src/Types.ts
@@ -268,10 +268,14 @@ export interface ITerminalOptions extends IPublicTerminalOptions {
   useFlowControl?: boolean;
 }
 
+export interface IBufferStringIteratorResult {
+  range: {first: number, last: number};
+  content: string;
+}
+
 export interface IBufferStringIterator {
   hasNext(): boolean;
-  next(withRanges: boolean): string | [{first: number, last: number}, string];
-  toArray(): string[];
+  next(): IBufferStringIteratorResult;
 }
 
 export interface IBuffer {