Return first item of vector

Question

I'm trying to write a shorthand function that returns the first element of a vector:

pub fn first() -> Option<&T> {
    let v = Vec::new();
    v.first()
}

Which of course fails with:

error: missing lifetime specifier [E0106]

Is there any way to make this work?

Answer 1

To take first element without copy:

vec.into_iter().nth(0)

But it will destroy a vector.