Swapping values of two variables

[Kottiyath]

On Jan 30, 8:31 am, Steven D'Aprano
<ste... at REMOVE.THIS.cybersource.com.au> wrote:
> On Thu, 29 Jan 2009 17:50:04 -0800, tony.clarke5 wrote:
> > On Jan 30, 12:29 am, Eric Kang <y... at sfu.ca> wrote:
> >> In python, I set:
>
> >> x=1
> >> y=3
>
> >> z = x
> >> x = y
> >> y = z
>
> >> This gave me 3 1, which are the values of x and y swapped. The
> >> following would have given me the same result: x, y = y, x
>
> >> But could the swapping be done using less extra memory than this? What
> >> is the minimum amount of extra memory required to exchange two 32-bit
> >> quantities? What would be the pseudocode that achieves this minimum?
>
> > How about:
> > def transpose(x, y):
> >     print x, y, 'becomes: ',
> >     x = x + y
> >     y = x - y
> >     x = x - y
> >     print x, ' ', y
>
> > transpose(1,3)
> > transpose (9,8)
>
> I'm not sure what the point of that function is. It doesn't actually swap
> its arguments:
>
> >>> x = 23
> >>> y = 42
> >>> transpose(x, y)
>
> 23 42 becomes:  42   23>>> x
> 23
> >>> y
>
> 42
>
> And it certainly doesn't save memory, as the original poster asked:
>
> >>> import dis
> >>> swap = compile('x, y = y, x', '', 'single')
> >>> dis.dis(swap)
>
>   1           0 LOAD_NAME                0 (y)
>               3 LOAD_NAME                1 (x)
>               6 ROT_TWO
>               7 STORE_NAME               1 (x)
>              10 STORE_NAME               0 (y)
>              13 LOAD_CONST               0 (None)
>              16 RETURN_VALUE
>
> >>> dis.dis(transpose)
>
>   2           0 LOAD_FAST                0 (x)
>               3 PRINT_ITEM
>               4 LOAD_FAST                1 (y)
>               7 PRINT_ITEM
>               8 LOAD_CONST               1 ('becomes: ')
>              11 PRINT_ITEM
>
>   3          12 LOAD_FAST                0 (x)
>              15 LOAD_FAST                1 (y)
>              18 BINARY_ADD
>              19 STORE_FAST               0 (x)
>
>   4          22 LOAD_FAST                0 (x)
>              25 LOAD_FAST                1 (y)
>              28 BINARY_SUBTRACT
>              29 STORE_FAST               1 (y)
>
>   5          32 LOAD_FAST                0 (x)
>              35 LOAD_FAST                1 (y)
>              38 BINARY_SUBTRACT
>              39 STORE_FAST               0 (x)
>
>   6          42 LOAD_FAST                0 (x)
>              45 PRINT_ITEM
>              46 LOAD_CONST               2 (' ')
>              49 PRINT_ITEM
>              50 LOAD_FAST                1 (y)
>              53 PRINT_ITEM
>              54 PRINT_NEWLINE
>              55 LOAD_CONST               0 (None)
>              58 RETURN_VALUE
>
> The compiled code of the transpose function *alone* (not including all
> the other associated parts) takes 59 bytes, or 472 bits.
>
> >>> len(transpose.func_code.co_code)
>
> 59
>
> Even if it worked, that's hardly using less memory than a direct swap.
>
> --
> Steven

Is it possible to swap two floats without a variable?