How can I build and run my gradle project, when it needs binary library files (JInput)?

Question

I'm trying to use JInput for my project, and the library needs some binaries for my application to run.

I've discovered that, the required binaries are inside the library. But still, I get an UnsatisfiedLinkError when doing a gradle run because it cannot find the library binaries.

So I guess I need to unpack the library .jar before running the project? How do I use a library that has native binaries in it?

Here's my build.gradle

plugins {

    id "java"
    id "application"
}

repositories {

    mavenCentral()
}

dependencies {

    // https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/net.java.jinput/jinput
    compile group: 'net.java.jinput', name: 'jinput', version: '2.0.7'
}

EDIT: Here you can see the contents of the library

Answer 1

Yes, there is an additional step. I followed these instructions: Getting started with JInput

The JInput dependencies you are linking in gradle file only set up the API for what methods/classes can be accessed. The actual machine code for those is inside the dynamic link libraries...DLL, i.e. the binaries.

First you download the DLLs:JInput DLL download into a folder.

Then you link the path to this folder with either a command line argument (-Djava.library.path= "C:/pathToLibrary" or dynamically by calling the following method before your class requiring it is created.

public static void setDllLibraryPath(String resourceStr) {
    try {
        System.setProperty("java.library.path", resourceStr);
        //System.setProperty("java.library.path", "/lib/x64");//for example

        Field fieldSysPath = ClassLoader.class.getDeclaredField("sys_paths");
        fieldSysPath.setAccessible(true);
        fieldSysPath.set(null, null);//next time path is accessed, the new path will be imported
    } catch (Exception ex) {
        ex.printStackTrace();
        throw new RuntimeException(ex);
    }
}