Julian Salazar wrote:
I'm wondering, who here would use a swap operator if it were available?
Something that would be normally achieved through:
temp = a;
a = b;
b = temp;
or for the more bit-wise ;)
a ^= b;
b ^= a;
a ^= b;
It's something I've never actually seen implemented in any higher level
language, but finds uses in linked lists, binary trees, and other data
structures and algorithms. Temp wouldn't need to be an addressable
value, so theoretically this operator (which I propose to be "<=>")
could be compiler-optimized into an x86 xchg opcode for example. It
could properly deal with references, data structures, class instances,
etc. and not require the programmer to worry about these details.
I know that the chance of it actually being implemented is close to nil,
but even a template in the standard library for it would be cool (or did
I miss something?). Or am I being deluded? :)
Oh, come on, It's just three lines of code! And it's not *that* common.
I know it's kind of basic and primitive, but there's a standard library
function for it. Why add an operator *just* for that?
The tuple assignment suggestion is better because it can handle more
interesting cases.
