[1] Note that count is permitted to be zero: a subsequence of zero elements is well defined. If you call search_n with count equal to zero, then the search will always succeed: no matter what value is, every range contains a subrange of zero consecutive elements that are equal to value. When search_n is called with count equal to zero, the return value is always first.

[2] The reason that this range is [first, last – count), rather than just [first, last), is that we are looking for a subsequence whose length is count; an iterator i can't be the beginning of such a subsequence unless last – count is greater than or equal to count. Note the implication of this: you may call search_n with arguments such that last – first is less than count, but such a search will always fail.