JRuby require error on .so file - ruby

Question

I am working on a feature for an application that has to run on JRuby. Out of habit I develop on 'Native' Ruby. When I try to run any methods from this class in JRuby I get error messages like:
MissingSourceFile: no such file to load -- serialport
I think the problem lies in in the require 'serialport.so'. Is there a way to make this work in JRuby? Is there another way to require a .so file? Or a gem that can work with JRuby to provide the SerialPort class? I tried installing the ruby-serialport gem but that doesn't seem to install properly (Windows nmake issues).
Here is what my class file looks like:
require 'serialport.so'
class AlphaDisplay
#STATES
SOLID = "b"
ROTATE = "a"
BLINK = "c"
#COLORS
RED = "1"
GREEN = "2"
YELLOW = "3"
ORANGE = "7"
def self.message(address = 00, text = "ICS", color = AlphaDisplay::GREEN, state = AlphaDisplay::SOLID)
address = address.to_s
if address.length == 1
address = "0#{address}"
end
string = 1.chr + 90.chr + address + 2.chr + 65.chr + 65.chr + 27.chr + 26.chr + state + 28.chr + color + text + 4.chr
return string
end
def self.test(address = 00, text = "ICS", color = AlphaDisplay::GREEN, state = AlphaDisplay::SOLID)
sp = SerialPort.new(0, 9600, 8, 1, SerialPort::NONE)
sp.write(message(address,text,color,state))
sp.close
end
end
def SerialPort::new(port, *params)
sp = create(port)
begin
sp.set_modem_params(*params)
rescue
sp.close
raise
end
return sp
end
def SerialPort::open(port, *params)
sp = create(port)
begin
sp.set_modem_params(*params)
if (block_given?)
yield sp
sp.close
return nil
end
rescue
sp.close
raise
end
return sp
end

Answer 1

As far as I know, JRuby doesn't provide any native emulation layer, just the Ruby interpreter in Java. The problem is that ".so" files are UNIX specific and cannot run on Windows without some sort of emulation/translation.
You're better off avoiding Ruby libraries which require native extensions if you're going to use JRuby.