Swap contents of two files

Question

This is a code-golf question. You need to take the contents of two separate files (i.txt and o.txt) and swap them. You can create a third file to help you with the process, but have your program delete it after the file contents are swapped. Renaming the files is now allowed again.

Programs must work for any file content.

Shortest code wins, all eligible submissions will be up-voted.

Answer 1

zsh, 20

<i*>t;<o*>i*;mv t o*

Answer 2

Python, 77

import os;t='.txt';r,i,o,x=[os.rename,'i'+t,'o'+t,'1'+t];r(i,x);r(o,i);r(x,o)

Python, 65

import os;t='.txt'
for a,b in zip('iox','xio'):os.rename(a+t,b+t)

Python, 63

import os;t='.txt'
for a,b in 'ix','oi','xo':os.rename(a+t,b+t)

PHP, 68

<?$r=rename;$t='.txt';$r("i$t","x");$r("o$t","i$t");$r("x","o$t");?>

Windows Batch File, 42

move i.txt x&move o.txt i.txt&move x o.txt

Windows Batch File (args), 30

move %1 x&move %2 %1&move x %2

Answer 3

Powershell, 44 49 bytes

$t='.txt'
ren i$t a$t -fo
ren o$t i$t
ren a$t o$t

where ren is alias for Rename-Item. The script uses and delete a third file a.txt.

Answer 4

Two bash based ansers; 52 and 62 chars

shell: diff + patch (+ tee + sed...) 52

Maybe not the shorter, but I find this fun (and there is no use of temporary file):

diff -u [io]*|tee >(patch -r -)|sed 1s/i/o/|patch -R

Where content is swapped and files are modified in place:

Sample run

swapContent() { diff -u $1 $2|tee >(patch -r -)|sed 1s/$1/$2/|patch -R ;}

while read page file ;do man -Pcol\ -b $page >$file.txt;done <<<$'man i\nbash o'
printf "%s %8d  %s\n" $(join -j 2 <(stat -c '%s %n' [io]*) <(md5sum [io]*))
swapContent [io]*
printf "%s %8d  %s\n" $(join -j 2 <(stat -c '%s %n' [io]*) <(md5sum [io]*))

Could produce something like:

i.txt    46007  1da1f7533e0eab1e97cce97bb7ca1d3b
o.txt   321071  7dcd230890faf4ef848d4745eda14407
patching file o.txt
i.txt   321071  7dcd230890faf4ef848d4745eda14407
o.txt    46007  1da1f7533e0eab1e97cce97bb7ca1d3b

use of xargs to simplify mv requests

Not as funny, but nice anyway.

set -- {i,o}.txt t&&eval 'xargs -n2 mv<<<"' \${1,3,2,1,3,2} \"

Answer 5

PHP, 89

I thought I'd give it a shot.

<?php $f1='f1.txt';$f2='f2.txt';$ft='ft.txt';copy($f1,$ft);copy($f2,$f1);rename($ft,$f2);

Ungolfed version:

<?php
$f1 = 'f1.txt';
$f2 = 'f2.txt';
$ft = 'ft.txt';

copy($f1, $ft);
copy($f2, $f1);
rename($ft, $f2);

Apparently I took 2 answers of here and combined them.. oh well.

Answer 6

Ruby, 72 bytes

Wow! A Ruby code golf! I don't think that's ever been attempted before!

In all reality though, this required some nice Ruby shortcuts and a couple patterns which I found. It was my first golf ever and it was very fun to do. Without further ado, here's the golfed code:

3.times{|x|x*=2;t=".txt";a=([?i,?a,?o]*2);File.rename(a[x]+t,a[x+1]+t)}

And the ungolfed version

3.times do |x|
    x = x * 2
    t=".txt"
    a=([?i,?a,?o]*2)
    File.rename(a[x]+t, a[x+1]+t)}
end

The key factor in this is that the parameters passed to the File.rename are this, exactly:

File.rename "i.txt", "a.txt"
File.rename "o.txt", "i.txt"
File.rename "a.txt", "o.txt"

Hope this (doesn't) make sense!

Answer 7

Windows Batch, 39 bytes

ren i.txt x&ren o.txt i.txt&ren x o.txt

Answer 8

Ruby

i1="i.txt"
i2="o.txt"
c1=IO.readlines(i2)
c2=IO.readlines(i1)
File.open(i1){|x|x.puts(c1)}
File.open(i2){|x|x.puts(c2)}

Shortened version:

a=["i.txt","o.txt"]
(0..1).each{|x|b[x]=IO.readlines(a[x])*"\n"}
a.reverse!
(0..1).each{|x|IO.write(a[x],b[x])}

Not the shortest, but very simple and easy to read. Also, no intermediate files, only RAM.

Answer 9

PHP

$f1 = 'file1.txt';
$f2 = 'file2.txt';

$f1contents = file_get_contents ($f1);
$f2contents = file_get_contents ($f2);

file_put_contents($f1, $f2contents);
file_put_contents($f2, $f1contents);

Answer 10

Shell script, 24

Works in Bash and probably most shells. Pass with your two filenames as parameters.

mv $1 ੴ;mv $2 $1;mv ੴ $2

If you want fixed filenames then this will do it, for a 12 char penalty:

mv i.txt ੴ;mv o.txt i.txt;mv ੴ o.txt

Answer 11

Python:

import os
l,e='i_o'*2,'.txt'
for x,y in zip(l,l[1:])[::2]:
 os.rename(x+e,y+e)

Answer 12

Tcl, 122 bytes

set A [read [open i.txt]]
puts [set i [open i.txt w]] [read [open o.txt]]
puts [set o [open o.txt w]] $A
close $i
close $o

Try it online!

---

Tcl, 169 bytes

set A [read [set i [open i.txt r]]]
set B [read [set o [open o.txt r]]]
close $i
close $o
puts [set i [open i.txt w]] $B
puts [set o [open o.txt w]] $A
close $i
close $o

Try it online!

Answer 13

Lua, 71 70 bytes

_ENV=os t='.txt'i,o,r='i'..t,'o'..t,rename r(i,t)r(o,i)r(t,o)remove(t)

Try it online!

Define os, the operating system library, as the global table so we can write rename and remove instead of os.rename and os.remove. (Incidentally this also means the one-letter variables are actually fields in the os table.) Make short alias for os.rename to save some space. Set up filename variables, using '.txt' as temporary file. Do the renaming and deleting.

Answer 14

PHP, 52 bytes

AsksAnyway´s php modernized & golfed:

($r=rename)(i.$e=".txt",x);$r(o.$e,i.$e);$r(x,o.$e);

Run with php -nr '<code>'.

Answer 15

Windows Batch File (48)

type i.txt>a&type o.txt>i.txt&type a>o.txt&del a

I forgot about the move command when I wrote this...

Answer 16

C 162

Golfed: uses t.txt as tmp file and swaps names then removes t.txt.

#include <stdio.h>
#define R(x,y) rename(x,y)
#define X(x) remove(x)
int main(){char *i="i.txt",*o="o.txt",*t="t.txt";R(i,t);X(i);R(o,i);R(t,o);X(t);return 0;}

Edit: removed 2 spaces

Answer 17

PHP - 172

Golfed version of @EisaAdil's answer

$f1='file1.txt';$f2='file2.txt';$f1contents=file_get_contents($f1);$f2contents=file_get_contents($f2);file_put_contents($f1,$f2contents);file_put_contents($f2,$f1contents);

Answer 18

PHP, 45

<?php
copy('i','t');copy('o','i');rename('t','o');

Not very golfy but shortest PHP so far.

Answer 19

Rebol - 46 (rename file) or 55 (r/w contents)

Rename file (using t as temporary file):

r: :rename 
r i: %i.txt %t
r o: %o.txt i
r %t o

Read in then write out file contents:

a: read i: %i.txt
b: read o: %o.txt
write o a 
write i b

Answer 20

Groovy - 99 chars

This is my attempt, with Groovy 2.2.1. I tried to do it without renaming:

f={new File(it+".txt")}
w={x,y->x.withWriter{it.write y}}
i=f "i"
o=f "o"
t=i.text
w i,o.text
w o,t

Ungolfed:

file = { new File(it+".txt") }
writeTextToFile = { x,y -> x.withWriter{it.write y} }

iFile = file("i")
oFile = file("o")

iText = iFile.text
writeTextToFile (iFile,oFile.text)
writeTextToFile (oFile,iText)

Answer 21

VBA (148...132) and (126...110)

Renaming with a temp file t in the c:\ drive. Also first attempt at golf :S

Sub s():Set f=CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject"):i="c:\i.txt":t="c:\t":f.MoveFile i,t:f.MoveFile "c:\o.txt",i:Kill t:End Sub

If scrrun.dll is referenced already, could cut it down a bit to 126...110.

Sub s():Set f=new FileSystemObject:i="c:\i.txt":t="c:\t":f.MoveFile i,t:f.MoveFile "c:\o.txt",i:Kill t:End Sub

Answer 22

C: 65 characters

#define r(a,b)rename(#a".txt",#b".txt");
main(){r(i,)r(o,i)r(,o)}

A quite simple solution in C that does the job. It uses a temporary name (.txt) for one of the files before giving it its proper new name.

Ungolfed (note how the syntax highlighting fails in the define, a bug has been uncovered!):

#include <stdio.h>

#define r(a, b) rename(#a ".txt", #b ".txt");

int main()
{
    r(i,  ) // rename("i.txt",  ".txt");
    r(o, i) // rename("o.txt", "i.txt");
    r( , o) // rename( ".txt", "o.txt");

    return 0;
}

Answer 23

Perl, 120 bytes (Contents swapping without file renaming)

use open IO,':bytes';undef$/;open I,"<i.txt";$I=<I>;open I,"<o.txt";open O,">i.txt";print O<I>;open O,">o.txt";print O$I

The file contents is put into memory and written back to the other file. Thus i.txt and o.txt must fit into memory.

Since the file contents are actually exchanged, hard links are updated automatically, see AJManfield's comment.

Ungolfed:

use open IO => ':bytes'; # binmode, not needed for Unix, but needed for Windows
undef $/;                # read whole file instead of lines
open I, "<i.txt";        # open i.txt for reading
$I = <I>;                # read i.txt
open I, "<o.txt";        # open o.txt for reading
open O, ">i.txt";        # open i.txt for writing
print O <I>;             # read o.txt and put the contents in i.txt
open O, ">o.txt";        # open o.txt for writing
print O $I;              # write o.txt with contents of old i.txt

Answer 24

SmileBASIC, 36 35 bytes

@L
RENAME@OI[2-I],@IO[I]I=I+1GOTO@L