Why does the nar-package goal run before the (general) jar goal
The nar-package goal generates the nar.properties file which needs to be included in the general jar artifact.
Why does the nar plugin produce both a jar artifact and an attached -noarch.nar artifact. Could these two not be combined?
The jar artifact contains only java classes and gets added to the classpath. It needs no further processing. The -noarch.nar artifact contains include files and needs to be unpacked to be useful for the native compilers. It does not need to be added to the classpath. Combining the two artifacts would complicate matters.
I use the nar-plugin to create a JNI type library. How do I load this library from my code?
The JNI library is strictly connected to the corresponding java code in the main artifact (jar file). Since the main artifact has a version number, we decided that the JNI library should have the same version number. If you add the subtag packageName to the library tag, the nar-plugin will generate a NarSystem class for you which will load the library. Assuming you specified com.mycompany.mypackage as packageName, then you need to add the following code to the class with the native methods:
import com.mycompany.mypackage.NarSystem
public class ... {
...
static {
NarSystem.loadLibrary();
}
...
}
