What is the Java equivalent for C# `Interlocked.Exchange(Object, Object) : Object`?

Question

What is the Java equivalent for C# Interlocked.Exchange(Object, Object) : Object? Is there a way in Java to perform the following actions in a single atomic step without lock: 1) store locally the reference of a variable 2) set another reference to the same variable?

Answer 1

There's no operation to do this for an arbitrary variable, as far as I'm aware... but this is what the AtomicReference type is for:

private AtomicReference<String> stringReference;

...

String oldValue = stringReference.getAndSet(newValue);