UnsafeUtility

Description

Provides a collection of low-level, unsafe utility methods for memory operations in Unity.

The UnsafeUtility class provides functions for direct memory manipulation. These functions are unsafe because they allow you to bypass the safety restrictions of managed code. You can perform operations such as memory allocation, deallocation, copying, and setting memory directly.

Use these methods with extreme caution to avoid memory leaks, access violations, or data corruption. The UnsafeUtility class is intended for scenarios where performance is critical, and the overhead of managed memory safety is prohibitive.

Common use cases include interaction with native code, performance-critical sections in custom collections or game systems, and low-level manipulation required by specific algorithms.

using Unity.Collections;
using Unity.Collections.LowLevel.Unsafe;
using UnityEngine;

public class UnsafeUtilityExample : MonoBehaviour
{
    void Start()
    {
        unsafe
        {
            // Allocate a block of unmanaged memory to store 10 integers
            int sizeOfInt = UnsafeUtility.SizeOf<int>();
            int length = 10;
            void* memoryBlock = UnsafeUtility.Malloc(sizeOfInt * length, 4, Allocator.Temp);

            // Write data to the allocated memory
            for (int i = 0; i < length; i++)
            {
                UnsafeUtility.WriteArrayElement<int>(memoryBlock, i, i * 10);
            }

            // Read and print data from the allocated memory
            for (int i = 0; i < length; i++)
            {
                int value = UnsafeUtility.ReadArrayElement<int>(memoryBlock, i);
                Debug.Log("Value: " + value);
            }

            // Free the allocated unmanaged memory
            UnsafeUtility.Free(memoryBlock, Allocator.Temp);
        }
    }
}

Additional resources: NativeArray<T0>, NativeArrayUnsafeUtility, Job system overview.

Static Methods