if err != nil {
		return nil, err
	}

	return &sarama.ProducerMessage{
		Topic: target.args.Topic,
		Key:   sarama.StringEncoder(key),
		Value: sarama.ByteEncoder(data),
	}, nil
}

// Close - closes underneath kafka connection.
func (target *KafkaTarget) Close() error {
	close(target.quitCh)

	if target.batch != nil {

    // It really seems like this should be faster than TO_BYTE_ARRAY_NEW_STRING.  But it just isn't
    // my best guess is that the jdk authors have spent more time optimizing that callpath than this
    // one. (StringCoding$StringDecoder vs. StreamDecoder).  StringCoding has a ton of special cases
    // theoretically we could duplicate all that logic here to try to beat 'new String' or at least
    // come close.
    USING_DECODER_WITH_SIZE_HINT {