Generic List - moving an item within the list

Question

So I have a generic list, and an oldIndex and a newIndex value.

I want to move the item at oldIndex, to newIndex.

Answer 1

I know this question is old but I adapted THIS response of javascript code to C#. Hope it helps

public static void Move<T>(this List<T> list, int oldIndex, int newIndex)
{
    // exit if positions are equal or outside array
    if ((oldIndex == newIndex) || (0 > oldIndex) || (oldIndex >= list.Count) || (0 > newIndex) ||
        (newIndex >= list.Count)) return;
    // local variables
    var i = 0;
    T tmp = list[oldIndex];
    // move element down and shift other elements up
    if (oldIndex < newIndex)
    {
        for (i = oldIndex; i < newIndex; i++)
        {
            list[i] = list[i + 1];
        }
    }
        // move element up and shift other elements down
    else
    {
        for (i = oldIndex; i > newIndex; i--)
        {
            list[i] = list[i - 1];
        }
    }
    // put element from position 1 to destination
    list[newIndex] = tmp;
}

Answer 2

I know you said "generic list" but you didn't specify that you needed to use the List(T) class so here is a shot at something different.

The ObservableCollection(T) class has a Move method that does exactly what you want.

public void Move(int oldIndex, int newIndex)

Underneath it is basically implemented like this.

T item = base[oldIndex];
base.RemoveItem(oldIndex);
base.InsertItem(newIndex, item);

So as you can see the swap method that others have suggested is essentially what the ObservableCollection does in it's own Move method.

UPDATE 2015-12-30: You can see the source code for the Move and MoveItem methods in corefx now for yourself without using Reflector/ILSpy since .NET is open source.

Answer 3

Insert the item currently at oldIndex to be at newIndex and then remove the original instance.

list.Insert(newIndex, list[oldIndex]);
if (newIndex <= oldIndex) ++oldIndex;
list.RemoveAt(oldIndex);

You have to take into account that the index of the item you want to remove may change due to the insertion.

Answer 4

This is how I implemented a move element extension method. It handles moving before/after and to the extremes for elements pretty well.

public static void MoveElement<T>(this IList<T> list, int fromIndex, int toIndex)
{
  if (!fromIndex.InRange(0, list.Count - 1))
  {
    throw new ArgumentException("From index is invalid");
  }
  if (!toIndex.InRange(0, list.Count - 1))
  {
    throw new ArgumentException("To index is invalid");
  }

  if (fromIndex == toIndex) return;

  var element = list[fromIndex];

  if (fromIndex > toIndex)
  {
    list.RemoveAt(fromIndex);
    list.Insert(toIndex, element);
  }
  else
  {
    list.Insert(toIndex + 1, element);
    list.RemoveAt(fromIndex);
  }
}