Swap two items in List<T>

Check the answer from Marc from C#: Good/best implementation of Swap method.

public static void Swap<T>(IList<T> list, int indexA, int indexB)
{
    T tmp = list[indexA];
    list[indexA] = list[indexB];
    list[indexB] = tmp;
}

which can be linq-i-fied like

public static IList<T> Swap<T>(this IList<T> list, int indexA, int indexB)
{
    T tmp = list[indexA];
    list[indexA] = list[indexB];
    list[indexB] = tmp;
    return list;
}

var lst = new List<int>() { 8, 3, 2, 4 };
lst = lst.Swap(1, 2);

Maybe someone will think of a clever way to do this, but you shouldn't. Swapping two items in a list is inherently side-effect laden but LINQ operations should be side-effect free. Thus, just use a simple extension method:

static class IListExtensions {
    public static void Swap<T>(
        this IList<T> list,
        int firstIndex,
        int secondIndex
    ) {
        Contract.Requires(list != null);
        Contract.Requires(firstIndex >= 0 && firstIndex < list.Count);
        Contract.Requires(secondIndex >= 0 && secondIndex < list.Count);
        if (firstIndex == secondIndex) {
            return;
        }
        T temp = list[firstIndex];
        list[firstIndex] = list[secondIndex];
        list[secondIndex] = temp;
    }
}

List<T> has a Reverse() method, however it only reverses the order of two (or more) consecutive items.

your_list.Reverse(index, 2);

Where the second parameter 2 indicates we are reversing the order of 2 items, starting with the item at the given index.

Source: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hf2ay11y(v=vs.110).aspx

Tags:

C#

Linq

Swap