What is LD_LIBRARY_PATH and how to use it?

Question

I take part in developing a Java project, which uses some C++ components, thus I need Jacob.dll. (on Windows 7)

I keep getting java.lang.UnsatisfiedLinkError:

Answer 1

My error was also related to not finding the required .so file by a service. I used LD_LIBRARY_PATH variable to priorities the path picked up by the linker to search the required lib.

I copied both service and .so file in a folder and fed it to LD_LIBRARY_PATH variable as

LD_LIBRARY_PATH=. ./service

being in the same folder I have given the above command and it worked.