Make eBroadcast my Homepage | Contact Us   Return To The Main eBroadcast Homepage
Australia
Web Guide Search
Australia
Welcome It's
Australia
Australia
Web Guide: Encyclopedia
EBroadcast Australia
Powered by Wikipedia

<<Up     Contents

Xor swap algorithm

Xor swap is a simple algorithm which uses the Exclusive disjunction (XOR) operation to swap the values of two variables without using an extra variable. This algorithm follows (where X and Y are the names of two variables, rather than two values):

  1. XOR the values of X and Y and store the result in X
  2. XOR the values of X and Y and store the result in Y
  3. XOR the values of X and Y and store the result in X

To see how this works, call the initial value of X = x0 and the initial value of Y = y0. Then:

  • after step 1, X = x0 XOR y0, Y = y0
  • after step 2, X = x0 XOR y0, Y = x0 XOR y0 XOR y0 = x0
  • after step 3, X = x0 XOR y0 XOR x0 = y0, Y = x0

This algorithm varies from other swap algorithms only in that it doesn't need to store the original value of X in a temporary buffer prior to overwriting it and doesn't need to restore this value in Y.

See: Assembler code, Visual Basic code, C code

Elsewhere
EBroadcast Australia
Search engine
Web directory

CONTENTS:
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z

Australia
eBroadcast Australia
Australia © 06 eBroadcast Australia | About eBroadcast | Legal Notices | Privacy Policy | Contact Us    Return To The Main eBroadcast Homepage