<< Over the past several years, we have introduced two standard APIs that are safe and performant replacements for the memory-access methods in sun.misc.Unsafe:

java.lang.invoke.VarHandle, introduced in JDK 9, provides methods to safely and efficiently manipulate on-heap memory: fields of objects, static fields of classes, and elements of arrays.

java.lang.foreign.MemorySegment, introduced in JDK 22, provides methods to safely and efficiently access off-heap memory (sometimes in cooperation with VarHandle).

These standard APIs guarantee no undefined behavior, promise long-term stability, and have high-quality integration with the tooling and documentation of the Java Platform (examples of their use are given below). Given the availability of these APIs, it is now appropriate to deprecate and eventually remove the memory-access methods in sun.misc.Unsafe. >>