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

With new versions of .net you can do

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

If order matters, you should keep a property on the "T" objects in your list that denotes sequence. In order to swap them, just swap the value of that property, and then use that in the .Sort(comparison with sequence property)