I was reading the cppreference documentation on vectors erase method. The documentation used the general syntax: it = v.erase(it); to remove the element it was pointing to and then increment it to the next element in the vector.

By accident I noticed that:

std::vector<int> v  = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5};
auto it = v.begin();
it = v.erase(it);
std::cout << *it << std::endl; // 2

and

std::vector<int> v  = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5};
auto it = v.begin();
v.erase(it);
std::cout << *it << std::endl; // 2

seems to work exactly the same. Is there any difference between the two? If they are the same: why is it = v.erase(it); the preferred syntax? it = v.erase(it); seems a little unnecessary if v.erase(it); does the exact same.