Managing DLL dependencies with Maven

Question

I have a Java program with Maven managing its dependencies. One of those dependency is a JNI wrapper for another program. Maven takes care of the reference to the relevant JAR file, but I'm left messing around with the DLL file myself.

Is there a good way of having Maven handle the DLL as well? Ideally I would like to have the DLL loaded into our local repository like the JAR file.

score 35 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 19 '09 at 21:26

35

Did you try something like this:

<dependency>
    <groupId>com.foo</groupId>
    <artifactId>footron</artifactId>
    <version>4.2</version>
    <scope>runtime</scope>
    <type>dll</type>
</dependency>

You can add them to maven's repository with something like this:

mvn install:install-file -Dfile=footron.dll -DgroupId=com.foo -DartifactId=footron  -Dversion=4.2 -Dpackaging=dll -DgeneratePom=true

Haven't done this for DLLs but something like this should work.

answered Jun 19 '09 at 21:26

sal

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Actually, after spending some additional time thinking about it I decided it was worth investing in the effort to remove the need for the DLL via JNI. Probably worth the effort in the long run. I will look into your suggestion though out of curiosity. – Kris Jun 20 '09 at 14:07
3

@Kris, that's probably a good idea. I thought of suggesting that but I don't make it a habit of telling people to fix code I haven't seen. AKA, Psychic code review – sal Jun 23 '09 at 15:32
1

@sal, so does having maven manage the .dll file automatically call System.loadLibrary()? Or do you still have to call System.loadLibrary()? I'm just wondering how I make sure that dll is loaded for other objects to use. – j will Jan 22 '15 at 23:19
I doubt it calls anything for you. The dll will be on the class path, but that's about it. – sal Jan 26 '15 at 02:34
I'm unsure how -Dpackaging=dll can work, but it does. When I try and make a real pom and use it it doesn't work however. – ggb667 Mar 07 '17 at 19:30

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered May 22 '18 at 21:03

I found another solution, which is described in the answer to this question: Using maven with DLL from third party and managing the name of the DLL

Basically, if you put the DLL into a ZIP file, and manage it as a separate dependency, and use the nativedependencies-maven-plugin, then the DLL will get unpacked with the right name.

Managing DLL dependencies with Maven

2 Answers2

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