Best way to swap variable values in Go?

Yes, it is possible. Assuming a and b have the same type, the example provided will work just fine. For example:

a, b := "second", "first"
fmt.Println(a, b) // Prints "second first"
b, a = a, b
fmt.Println(a, b) // Prints "first second"

Run sample on the playground

This is both legal and idiomatic, so there's no need to use an intermediary buffer.

Yes it is possible to swap elements using tuple assignments:

i := []int{1, 2, 3, 4}
fmt.Println(i)

i[0], i[1] = i[1], i[0]
fmt.Println(i)

a, b := 1, 2
fmt.Println(a, b)

a, b = b, a // note the lack of ':' since no new variables are being created
fmt.Println(a, b)

Output:

[1 2 3 4]
[2 1 3 4]
1 2
2 1

Example: https://play.golang.org/p/sopFxCqwM1

More details here: https://golang.org/ref/spec#Assignments

There is a function called Swapper which takes a slice and returns a swap function. This swap function takes 2 indexes and swap the index values in the slice.

package main

import (
    "fmt"
    "reflect"
)

func main() {
    s := []int{1, 2, 3}

    fmt.Printf("Before swap: %v\n", s)

    swapF := reflect.Swapper(s)

    swapF(0, 1)

    fmt.Printf("After swap: %v\n", s)
}

Try it

Output

Before swap: [1 2 3]
After swap: [2 1 3]

---

Yes, you can swap values like python.

a, b := 0, 1
fmt.Printf("Before swap a = %v, b = %v\n", a, b)

b, a = a, b
fmt.Printf("After swap a = %v, b = %v\n", a, b)

Output

Before swap a = 0, b = 1
After swap a = 1, b = 0