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I have two lists with equal length, and I want to exchange the elements on every even positions. For example, 

{{1, 2, 3, 4, 5}, {6, 7, 8, 9, 10}}

will return 

{{1, 7, 3, 9, 5}, {6, 2, 8, 4, 10}}

It has to be able to deal with length of both even and odd; and in the real case the list is very long. I am not satisfied with naive approaches with indexing and partitioning because they are slow. Is there any fast approaches?

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list[[All, 2 ;; ;; 2]] = Reverse @ list[[All, 2 ;; ;; 2]]; 
list

{{1, 7, 3, 9, 5}, {6, 2, 8, 4, 10}}

or list[[-1 ;; 1 ;; -1, 2 ;; ;; 2]].

ps. keep in mind that this changes list.

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  • $\begingroup$ Thanks! Your solution is the fastest $\endgroup$ – happy fish Aug 5 '16 at 9:42
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    $\begingroup$ I modified your code to use the backward-compatible form. I also find this more readable as one can get lost in all the semicolons. I hope you do not mind. $\endgroup$ – Mr.Wizard♦ Aug 5 '16 at 11:49
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    $\begingroup$ You could also eliminate Reverse with: list[[All, 2 ;; ;; 2]] = list[[{2, 1}, 2 ;; ;; 2]];, or perhaps more explicitly list[[{1, 2}, 2 ;; ;; 2]] = list[[{2, 1}, 2 ;; ;; 2]]; $\endgroup$ – Mr.Wizard♦ Aug 5 '16 at 11:56
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ClearAll[f1]
f1 = Module[{l2 = Transpose@#}, l2 = Transpose[MapAt[Reverse, l2, {2 ;; ;; 2}]]] &;

f1@{{1, 2, 3, 4, 5}, {6, 7, 8, 9, 10}}

{{1, 7, 3, 9, 5}, {6, 2, 8, 4, 10}}

Or

ClearAll[f2]
f2 = Module[{l2 = #}, 
    l2[[All, 2 ;; ;; 2]] = Reverse /@ Transpose[l2[[All, 2 ;; ;; 2]]]; l2] &;

f2@{{1, 2, 3, 4, 5}, {6, 7, 8, 9, 10}}

{{1, 7, 3, 2, 5}, {6, 9, 8, 4, 10}}

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  • $\begingroup$ I knew spanning specification worked with Take (was designed for?), but it obviously works with MapAt as well. But a span of elements is generally not equivalent to a list of positions, right? $\endgroup$ – BoLe Aug 5 '16 at 10:02
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I think Reverse is better suited for long lists. When the lists that need be reversed have length 2, I would do this:

L = {{1, 2, 3, 4, 5}, {6, 7, 8, 9, 10}};
Transpose[MapAt[#[[{2, 1}]] &, Transpose[L], 2 ;; ;; 2]]
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  • $\begingroup$ I knew spanning specification worked with Take (was designed for?), but it obviously works with MapAt as well. But a span of elements is generally not equivalent to a list of positions, right? $\endgroup$ – BoLe Aug 5 '16 at 10:03
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lst = {{1, 2, 3, 4, 5}, {6, 7, 8, 9, 10}};
Module[{i = 1},
  Transpose@MapThread[If[EvenQ[i++], Reverse@{##}, {##}] &, lst]
 ]
(* {{1, 7, 3, 9, 5}, {6, 2, 8, 4, 10}} *)
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