Swapping two variables in Java without using a third variable or an API [duplicate]

Question

I recently went to an interview and I was asked to write some code to swap the values of two variables without using third variable or any API.

I could not work out how to do this, can you help me on this?

For example I have two variable a=10 and b=20 the output should be b=10 and a=20.

Nima · Accepted Answer · 2014-03-10 19:23:42Z

1

Tricky but not that hard to figure out:

a = 10 b = 20 a = a + b; //a = 30, b = 20 b = a - b; //a = 30, b = 10 a = a - b; //a = 20, b = 10

answered Mar 10, 2014 at 19:23

Nima

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6 Comments

Nima Over a year ago

adding 10 and 20 causes overflow?

user3351552 Over a year ago

Do we have any algorithm to swap.Here we are going with values.Suppose if we have to read the values from the keyboard and the with the swapped output mean how to solve @Nima

Richard Miskin Over a year ago

If instead of 20 you use Integer.MAX_VALUE you will get overflow. However, I think it all comes out in the wash and the values should be correct at the end.

PolishDeveloper Over a year ago

this doesn't work with strings.. use XOR algorithmn as mentioned above

Radiodef Over a year ago

@PiotrMiazga XOR swap won't work for String either.

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