SWAP

swap contents of two variables

Description

SWAP(A,B) puts the contents of variable A into variable B and vice versa. You can use either function syntax 'swap(A,B)' or command syntax 'swap A B'.
 
Example:
   A = 1:4 ; B = 'Hello' ;
   swap(A,B) ;
   A % -> Hello
   B % -> 1 2 3 4
   swap A B ; % and back again ...
 
SWAP(A,B) is a convenient easy short-cut for other (series of) commands that have the same effect,e.g.,

  temp=A ; A=B ; B=temp ; clear temp ;
  [B,A] = deal(A,B) ;

The advantage over these two methods is that using SWAP one does not have to declare intermediate variables or worry about output.

• MATLAB release: MATLAB 6.5 (R13)

[Carlos Lopez]

Why the following one-line function might not serve the same purpose?
function [y,x]=swap(x,y)

[Jos vdG]

"function [y,x]=swap(x,y)" does not serve the same purpose, e.g., when it is called
like
A = 1 ; B = 'xx' ;
[C,D] = swap(A,B)

This will just create two new variables C and D, and does not swap A and B ...

[urs (us) schwarz]

another one of the many solutions
format debug; % show the address asignments
a=1 % note the PR address
b='b';
[a,b]=deal(b,a)

us