Template argument deduction/substitution failed: couldn‘t deduce template parameter [How to Solve]

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Error code error reason solution

Error code

We want to implement a generic function to find the maximum value of the interval. The parameters are left and right iterators, which return the maximum value.

#include<iostream>
#include<vector>
using namespace std;
template<class T>
T findmax(typename vector<T>::iterator left,typename vector<T>::iterator right){
    T ret = *left;
    for (;left!=right;++left){
        ret = (*left)>ret ?*left : ret;     
    }
    return ret;
}

int main(){
    vector<int> a({3,4,6,2,1,5});
    cout << findmax(a.begin(),a.end());
    return 0;
}

error:
15:38: error: no matching function for call to ‘findmax(std::vector::iterator, std::vector::iterator)’
15 | cout << findmax(a.begin(),a.end());
5:3: note: candidate: ‘template T findmax(typename std::vector::iterator, typename std::vector::iterator)’
5 | T findmax(typename vector::iterator left,typename vector::iterator right){
5:3: note: template argument deduction/substitution failed:
15:38: note: couldn’t deduce template parameter ‘T’
15 | cout << findmax(a.begin(),a.end());

The reason
The compiler cannot guess that the template T is int based on the type vector< int >::iterator passed in

Solution
Specify the template manually at the place where the function is called.
Replace the used findmax with findmax< int >:

#include<iostream>
#include<vector>
using namespace std;
template<class T>
T findmax(typename vector<T>::iterator left,typename vector<T>::iterator right){
    T ret = *left;
    for (;left!=right;++left){
        ret = (*left)>ret ?*left : ret;     
    }
    return ret;
}

int main(){
    vector<int> a({3,4,6,2,1,5});
    cout << findmax<int>(a.begin(),a.end());
    return 0;
}

Run successfully

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