How to increment an iterator by 2?

Solution 1:

std::advance( iter, 2 );

This method will work for iterators that are not random-access iterators but it can still be specialized by the implementation to be no less efficient than iter += 2 when used with random-access iterators.

Solution 2:

http://www.cplusplus.com/reference/std/iterator/advance/

std::advance(it,n);

where n is 2 in your case.

The beauty of this function is, that If "it" is an random access iterator, the fast

it += n

operation is used (i.e. vector<,,>::iterator). Otherwise its rendered to

for(int i = 0; i < n; i++)
    ++it;

(i.e. list<..>::iterator)

Solution 3:

If you don't have a modifiable lvalue of an iterator, or it is desired to get a copy of a given iterator (leaving the original one unchanged), then C++11 comes with new helper functions - std::next / std::prev:

std::next(iter, 2);          // returns a copy of iter incremented by 2
std::next(std::begin(v), 2); // returns a copy of begin(v) incremented by 2
std::prev(iter, 2);          // returns a copy of iter decremented by 2

Solution 4:

You could use the 'assignment by addition' operator

iter += 2;