25 Iterators library [iterators]

25.4 Iterator primitives [iterator.primitives]

25.4.4 Range iterator operations [range.iter.ops]

25.4.4.1 General [range.iter.ops.general]

The library includes the function templates ranges​::​advance, ranges​::​distance, ranges​::​next, and ranges​::​prev to manipulate iterators.
These operations adapt to the set of operators provided by each iterator category to provide the most efficient implementation possible for a concrete iterator type.
[Example 1: 
ranges​::​advance uses the + operator to move a random_access_iterator forward n steps in constant time.
For an iterator type that does not model random_access_iterator, ranges​::​advance instead performs n individual increments with the ++ operator.
— end example]
The function templates defined in [range.iter.ops] are not found by argument-dependent name lookup ([basic.lookup.argdep]).
When found by unqualified ([basic.lookup.unqual]) name lookup for the postfix-expression in a function call ([expr.call]), they inhibit argument-dependent name lookup.
[Example 2: void foo() { using namespace std::ranges; std::vector<int> vec{1,2,3}; distance(begin(vec), end(vec)); // #1 }
The function call expression at #1 invokes std​::​ranges​::​distance, not std​::​distance, despite that (a) the iterator type returned from begin(vec) and end(vec) may be associated with namespace std and (b) std​::​distance is more specialized ([temp.func.order]) than std​::​ranges​::​distance since the former requires its first two parameters to have the same type.
— end example]
The number and order of deducible template parameters for the function templates defined in [range.iter.ops] is unspecified, except where explicitly stated otherwise.