How to unload library (DLL) from the JVM

Question

I need to unload a DLL that was loaded with System.loadLibrary(..), anyone know if this is possible?

Bottoms

Answer 1

I don't have any experience of this, but a bit of digging shows that the library should be unloaded when the classloader which loaded the library is garbage collected.

Links:

• Invocation API docs (Sun) - look for "Library and Version Management"
• Java JNI DLL Unloading tutorial

Architrave

I just wasted 3 hours on this: The Java JNI DLL Unloading tutorial works, but you cannot have a finalize() method in either your CustomClassLoader or your class that contains the native method! I did not investigate why, but my guess is that it's related to the deprecation of finalize(). When removing the finalize from the example code everything works great! – Peltz