Don't return configuration value by reference

The lifetime of the default value is often not long enough to survive to
the next statement, so returning it by reference is dangereous.

At the moment there may not be any place that actually tries to use the
returned value as a reference, but it's better not to wait on it to
happen. This was already fixed on the client after it lead to strange
crashes.

Reviewed-by: Jared Adams

2 files changed, 3 insertions, 3 deletions

diff --git a/src/common/configuration.cpp b/src/common/configuration.cpp
index 71c1811b..80364b0b 100644
--- a/src/common/configuration.cpp
+++ b/src/common/configuration.cpp
@@ -68,8 +68,8 @@ void Configuration::deinitialize()
 {
 }
 
-const std::string &Configuration::getValue(const std::string &key,
-                                           const std::string &deflt)
+std::string Configuration::getValue(const std::string &key,
+                                    const std::string &deflt)
 {
     std::map<std::string, std::string>::iterator iter = options.find(key);
     if (iter == options.end()) return deflt;
diff --git a/src/common/configuration.hpp b/src/common/configuration.hpp
index 791d35c4..5e930a99 100644
--- a/src/common/configuration.hpp
+++ b/src/common/configuration.hpp
@@ -38,7 +38,7 @@ namespace Configuration
      * @param key option identifier.
      * @param deflt default value.
      */
-    const std::string &getValue(const std::string &key, const std::string &deflt);
+    std::string getValue(const std::string &key, const std::string &deflt);
 
     /**
      * Gets an option as a string.