No matching function for call to 'std::advance' error

Question

I have the following code which Xcode says it doesn't recognised the signature for std::advance:

template<typename Container> const typename Container::value_type&
getNthElement(const Container& container, size_t n) {
    auto nElem = advance(container.begin(), n);
    return *nElem;
}

The compiler doesn't support C++14 so I can't use cbegin(container). Why is this solution wrong ?

Answer 1

std::advance doesn't return anything (see here: http://www.cplusplus.com/reference/iterator/advance/, its return type is void) so auto nElem = advance(container.begin(), n); isn't valid. As said in comments, you can use next. :)