Javascript swap array elements

Question

Is there any simpler way to swap two elements in an array?

var a = list[x], b = list[y];
list[y] = a;
list[x] = b;

Answer 1

For two or more elements (fixed number)

[list[y], list[x]] = [list[x], list[y]];

No temporary variable required!

I was thinking about simply calling list.reverse().
But then I realised it would work as swap only when list.length = x + y + 1.

For variable number of elements

I have looked into various modern Javascript constructions to this effect, including Map and map, but sadly none has resulted in a code that was more compact or faster than this old-fashioned, loop-based construction:

function multiswap(arr,i0,i1) {/* argument immutable if string */
    if (arr.split) return multiswap(arr.split(""), i0, i1).join("");
    var diff = [];
    for (let i in i0) diff[i0[i]] = arr[i1[i]];
    return Object.assign(arr,diff);
}

Example:
    var alphabet = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz";
    var [x,y,z] = [14,6,15];
    var output = document.getElementsByTagName("code");
    output[0].innerHTML = alphabet;
    output[1].innerHTML = multiswap(alphabet, [0,25], [25,0]);
    output[2].innerHTML = multiswap(alphabet, [0,25,z,1,y,x], [25,0,x,y,z,3]);

<table>
    <tr><td>Input:</td>                        <td><code></code></td></tr>
    <tr><td>Swap two elements:</td>            <td><code></code></td></tr>
    <tr><td>Swap multiple elements:&nbsp;</td> <td><code></code></td></tr>
</table>

Answer 2

Here's a compact version swaps value at i1 with i2 in arr

arr.slice(0,i1).concat(arr[i2],arr.slice(i1+1,i2),arr[i1],arr.slice(i2+1))

Answer 3

var a = [1,2,3,4,5], b=a.length;

for (var i=0; i<b; i++) {
    a.unshift(a.splice(1+i,1).shift());
}
a.shift();
//a = [5,4,3,2,1];

Answer 4

You only need one temporary variable.

var b = list[y];
list[y] = list[x];
list[x] = b;

Answer 5

If you don't want to use temp variable in ES5, this is one way to swap array elements.

var swapArrayElements = function (a, x, y) {
  if (a.length === 1) return a;
  a.splice(y, 1, a.splice(x, 1, a[y])[0]);
  return a;
};

swapArrayElements([1, 2, 3, 4, 5], 1, 3); //=> [ 1, 4, 3, 2, 5 ]

Answer 6

If you want a single expression, using native javascript, remember that the return value from a splice operation contains the element(s) that was removed.

var A = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9], x= 0, y= 1;
A[x] = A.splice(y, 1, A[x])[0];
alert(A); // alerts "2,1,3,4,5,6,7,8,9"

Edit:

The [0] is necessary at the end of the expression as Array.splice() returns an array, and in this situation we require the single element in the returned array.