This is from a small library that I found online:

 const char* GetHandStateBrief(const PostFlopState* state)
{
    static std::ostringstream out;

... rest of the function ...

 return out.str().c_str()

Now in my code I am doing this:

const char *d = GetHandStateBrief(&post);
std::cout<< d << std::endl;

Now, at first d contained garbage. I then realized that the c string I am getting from the function is destroyed when the function returns because std::ostringstream is allocated on the stack. So I added:

return strdup( out.str().c_str());

And now I can get the text I need from the function.

I have two questions:

1) Am I understanding this correctly?

2) I later noticed that the ostringstream was was allocated with static storage. Doesn't that mean that the object is supposed to stay in memory until the program terminates? and if so , then why can't I access the string?