how to add DLL to a NB Platform Library Module

[Dejan Vucinic-2]

Greetings,

I've been trying for the past couple of days to add a native library
to a Library Module for the NetBeans 5.5 Platform.  The situation
seems to me like something that would be encountered often: I
have a third-party .jar file that comes with its own .DLL for use on
windows machines.  I can wrap the .jar in a Library Module with a
few mouse clicks as described in the documentation, but no
matter where I put the .DLL, regardless of adding <include ...>
statements to common.xml, the .DLL just doesn't get found by
the target platform.  Could anyone please explain why this is such
a pain?  Will this get fixed in NB 6?

Thanks,

--dv

[Radim Kubacki-2]

Dejan Vucinic wrote:

> Greetings,
>
> I've been trying for the past couple of days to add a native library
> to a Library Module for the NetBeans 5.5 Platform.  The situation
> seems to me like something that would be encountered often: I
> have a third-party .jar file that comes with its own .DLL for use on
> windows machines.  I can wrap the .jar in a Library Module with a
> few mouse clicks as described in the documentation, but no
> matter where I put the .DLL, regardless of adding <include ...>
> statements to common.xml, the .DLL just doesn't get found by
> the target platform.  Could anyone please explain why this is such
> a pain?  Will this get fixed in NB 6?
>

The module system looks for native libraries in modules/lib directories.
You can look at the example of extbrowser module that is part of IDE.

-Radim

> Thanks,
>
> --dv
>

[Dejan Vucinic-2]

Thanks for the pointers Radim.  The problem, of course, was that
it's not modules/lib that the build script looks in, it's
release/modules/lib which is not really documented in an obvious
place.

The correct way to do it would be to have an Action in the Library
Wrapper Module so that a right-click offers a menu option
"Add Native Library..." which pops up a file chooser and copies
the chosen .dll or .so to the appropriate location.  This is a
two-minute job for someone who knows where to add the action.
Could someone please do it in NB6?  I'm sure hundreds of folks
stumble on this one.

Thanks,

--dv

Radim Kubacki wrote:

> Dejan Vucinic wrote:
>> Greetings,
>>
>> I've been trying for the past couple of days to add a native library
>> to a Library Module for the NetBeans 5.5 Platform.  The situation
>> seems to me like something that would be encountered often: I
>> have a third-party .jar file that comes with its own .DLL for use on
>> windows machines.  I can wrap the .jar in a Library Module with a
>> few mouse clicks as described in the documentation, but no
>> matter where I put the .DLL, regardless of adding <include ...>
>> statements to common.xml, the .DLL just doesn't get found by
>> the target platform.  Could anyone please explain why this is such
>> a pain?  Will this get fixed in NB 6?
>>
> The module system looks for native libraries in modules/lib directories.
> You can look at the example of extbrowser module that is part of IDE.
>
> -Radim
>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> --dv
>>
>

[Sven Reimers]

This solves your problem, since the *.dll is loaded from inside the
VM. If this *.dll requires another *.dll it also has to provide, it is
even more difficult to get this working.

The main problem is that the second *.dll is loaded via the os
mechanism, which just looks in . or whatever is declared beforehand on
a systemwide scale. This is bad for a module that just would like to
bring the library and remove it on uninstall.

The actual solution is to put the *.dll into . (in nb6 this is
netbeans/) to get this to work. BUt it would be better to have a
similar solution to what is done for the wrapper *.dll's, e,g, add
modules/lib of all clusters to the operating system library path , so
that *.dll's would be found there as well.

Anybody any further comments on this?

-Sven

On 1/25/07, Dejan Vucinic <dejan.vucinic@...> wrote:

> Thanks for the pointers Radim.  The problem, of course, was that
> it's not modules/lib that the build script looks in, it's
> release/modules/lib which is not really documented in an obvious
> place.
>
> The correct way to do it would be to have an Action in the Library
> Wrapper Module so that a right-click offers a menu option
> "Add Native Library..." which pops up a file chooser and copies
> the chosen .dll or .so to the appropriate location.  This is a
> two-minute job for someone who knows where to add the action.
> Could someone please do it in NB6?  I'm sure hundreds of folks
> stumble on this one.
>
> Thanks,
>
> --dv
>
> Radim Kubacki wrote:
> > Dejan Vucinic wrote:
> >> Greetings,
> >>
> >> I've been trying for the past couple of days to add a native library
> >> to a Library Module for the NetBeans 5.5 Platform.  The situation
> >> seems to me like something that would be encountered often: I
> >> have a third-party .jar file that comes with its own .DLL for use on
> >> windows machines.  I can wrap the .jar in a Library Module with a
> >> few mouse clicks as described in the documentation, but no
> >> matter where I put the .DLL, regardless of adding <include ...>
> >> statements to common.xml, the .DLL just doesn't get found by
> >> the target platform.  Could anyone please explain why this is such
> >> a pain?  Will this get fixed in NB 6?
> >>
> > The module system looks for native libraries in modules/lib directories.
> > You can look at the example of extbrowser module that is part of IDE.
> >
> > -Radim
> >
> >> Thanks,
> >>
> >> --dv
> >>
> >
>

[Dejan Vucinic-2]

What you describe seems to me like an entirely different problem.
If a .jar pulls in a DLL that pulls in another DLL that's not part
of the native platform, the second DLL should also be loaded
explicitly from within Java code.  If one gets a pre-packaged .jar
that doesn't do this, it's not too difficult to wrap around it when
packaging the .nbm jar so that all this is made invisible to the end
developer.  A brief HOWTO on how to do this would spare the world a
whole lot of pain. :)

As far as modifying the process's environment from within to make the
OS search for DLLs in the right places, I was under the impression
that a VM doesn't permit changing the native process's environment
from within, only reading it?  I could be wrong.  Of course, one
could always use JNI to get at a native call that permits one to do
so from the outside, eww...

--dv

Sven Reimers wrote:

> This solves your problem, since the *.dll is loaded from inside the
> VM. If this *.dll requires another *.dll it also has to provide, it is
> even more difficult to get this working.
>
> The main problem is that the second *.dll is loaded via the os
> mechanism, which just looks in . or whatever is declared beforehand on
> a systemwide scale. This is bad for a module that just would like to
> bring the library and remove it on uninstall.
>
> The actual solution is to put the *.dll into . (in nb6 this is
> netbeans/) to get this to work. BUt it would be better to have a
> similar solution to what is done for the wrapper *.dll's, e,g, add
> modules/lib of all clusters to the operating system library path , so
> that *.dll's would be found there as well.
>
> Anybody any further comments on this?
>
> -Sven
>
> On 1/25/07, Dejan Vucinic <dejan.vucinic@...> wrote:
>> Thanks for the pointers Radim.  The problem, of course, was that
>> it's not modules/lib that the build script looks in, it's
>> release/modules/lib which is not really documented in an obvious
>> place.
>>
>> The correct way to do it would be to have an Action in the Library
>> Wrapper Module so that a right-click offers a menu option
>> "Add Native Library..." which pops up a file chooser and copies
>> the chosen .dll or .so to the appropriate location.  This is a
>> two-minute job for someone who knows where to add the action.
>> Could someone please do it in NB6?  I'm sure hundreds of folks
>> stumble on this one.
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> --dv
>>
>> Radim Kubacki wrote:
>> > Dejan Vucinic wrote:
>> >> Greetings,
>> >>
>> >> I've been trying for the past couple of days to add a native library
>> >> to a Library Module for the NetBeans 5.5 Platform.  The situation
>> >> seems to me like something that would be encountered often: I
>> >> have a third-party .jar file that comes with its own .DLL for use on
>> >> windows machines.  I can wrap the .jar in a Library Module with a
>> >> few mouse clicks as described in the documentation, but no
>> >> matter where I put the .DLL, regardless of adding <include ...>
>> >> statements to common.xml, the .DLL just doesn't get found by
>> >> the target platform.  Could anyone please explain why this is such
>> >> a pain?  Will this get fixed in NB 6?
>> >>
>> > The module system looks for native libraries in modules/lib
>> directories.
>> > You can look at the example of extbrowser module that is part of IDE.
>> >
>> > -Radim
>> >
>> >> Thanks,
>> >>
>> >> --dv
>> >>
>> >
>>
>

[tomwheel]

On 1/26/07, Dejan Vucinic <dejan.vucinic@...> wrote:
> ... A brief HOWTO on how to do this would spare the world a
> whole lot of pain. :)

I'd encourage you to write one here:

   http://wiki.netbeans.org/wiki/view/Main

--
Tom Wheeler
http://www.tomwheeler.com/