static public function fromString($string, $paddingDirection = self::PAD_LEFT)
    {
        if (!class_exists("Normalizer")) {
            // Data representation Normalization not supported
            return new Buffer($string, null, $paddingDirection);
        }

        // Normalizer is used to avoid problems with UTF-8 serialization
        $normalized = \Normalizer::normalize($string, \Normalizer::FORM_KD);
        return new Buffer($normalized, null, $paddingDirection);
    }