Another solution. The input array is known to have an even number of elements. Just take pairs off of the top of @input, swap 'em, push 'em to a temp array, then return that array when done. No need for recursion, indexing or anything "tricky". 
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;

my @input = (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8);

print swap_pairs(@input); # prints: 21436587

sub swap_pairs
{
   my @swapped_pairs;
   while ( my ($x,$y) = splice(@_,0,2) )
   {
      push @swapped_pairs,($y,$x);
   }
   return @swapped_pairs;
}

[download]

In reply to Re: Switch the odd/even elements of an array by Marshall
in thread Switch the odd/even elements of an array by jaredor

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.