The javadoc of FXCollections states that it is a "Utility class that consists of static methods that are 1:1 copies of java.util.Collections methods". But it doesn't have a FXCollections.swap(ObservableList<T>, int, int) counterpart of Collections.swap(List<T>, int, int).

The problem with using Collections.swap on an ObservableList is that it fires ListChangeListener multiple times. For example run the following code:

import java.util.Collections;
import java.util.ArrayList;

import javafx.collections.ObservableList;
import javafx.collections.ListChangeListener;
import javafx.collections.FXCollections;
 
public class CollectionsSwapDemo {
 
    public static void main(String[] args) {
 
        // Use Java Collections to create ArrayList
        ArrayList<String> list = new ArrayList<>();
        list.add("d");
        list.add("b");
        list.add("a");
        list.add("c");
        
        // Now add observability by wrapping it with ObservableList
        ObservableList<String> observableList = FXCollections.observableList(list);
        
        observableList.addListener(new ListChangeListener<String>() {
            @Override
            public void onChanged(ListChangeListener.Change change) {
               System.out.println("Change Detected");
            }
        });
        
        Collections.swap(observableList, 0, 2);
    }
}


Observed output: Change Detected is printed two times.

It will be nice to have an FXCollections.swap method which limits the number of notifications.