Changing the position of one flex child without having to manually assign the "order" property to others

Question

I was interested swapping the order of my first flex child with the second. The problem I have is that I could potentially be dealing with a dozen or more divs. Is there a way I can assign the order of one flex child without having to assigning the order property to each one? Otherwise the first div gets pushed to the bottom.

.container {
  display: flex;
  flex-direction: column;
}

.child:first-of-type {
  order: 2;
}

<div class="container">
  <div class="child">1</div>
  <div class="child">2</div>
  <div class="child">3</div>
  <div class="child">4</div>
  <div class="child">5</div>
  <div class="child">6</div>
  <div class="child">7</div>
  <div class="child">8</div>
</div>

Answer 1

I was interested swapping the order of my first flex child with the second.

Give the second order: -1

.container {
  display: flex;
  flex-direction: column;
}

.child:nth-child(2) {
  order: -1;
}

<div class="container">
  <div class="child">1</div>
  <div class="child">2</div>
  <div class="child">3</div>
  <div class="child">4</div>
  <div class="child">5</div>
  <div class="child">6</div>
  <div class="child">7</div>
  <div class="child">8</div>
</div>

Is there a way I can assign the order of one flex child without having to assigning the order property to each one

No, if you want to move one between two other, you can't do that with just 1 rule, you need 2

.container {
  display: flex;
  flex-direction: column;
}

.child:nth-child(n+8) {
  order: 2;
}
.child:nth-child(5) {
  order: 1;
}

<div class="container">
  <div class="child">1</div>
  <div class="child">2</div>
  <div class="child">3</div>
  <div class="child">4</div>
  <div class="child">5</div>
  <div class="child">6</div>
  <div class="child">7</div>
  <div class="child">8</div>
</div>

Answer 2

Change all of them to order 2, and only the second to order 1:

.container {
  display: flex;
  flex-direction: column;
}

.child:nth-child(2) {
  order: 1;
}

.child {
  order: 2;
}

<div class="container">
  <div class="child">1</div>
  <div class="child">2</div>
  <div class="child">3</div>
  <div class="child">4</div>
  <div class="child">5</div>
  <div class="child">6</div>
  <div class="child">7</div>
  <div class="child">8</div>
</div>