So, all information I've found online points to JNI keeping state of global variables defined on C.

However, In my particular case, this isn't working.

C Code:

//*snip* (just the includes) 
static int sockfd = -2;

jint JNI_OnLoad(JavaVM *vm, void *reserved) {

    printf("Calling onLoad\n");
    return JNI_VERSION_1_4;
}


JNIEXPORT jboolean JNICALL cinit
  (JNIEnv * env, jobject obj){

  sockfd = 5; //This would normally be the socket initialization code, but this is a lot simpler and also fails. 

  printf("Open %d\n",sockdf); // This prints 5. 

  return 1; 

}

JNIEXPORT jboolean JNICALL cwrite
  (JNIEnv * env, jobject obj, jbyteArray bytes){
    // a is a valid array.
    printf("Write %d\n",sockfd); // This prints -2!!!! 
    if ((b = write(sockfd, a, sizeof(a))) < 0){
        perror("write"); 
        return 0;
    }

    return 1;
}

The Java code just inits the library with a single loadLibrary inside a static block, and then calls open, then write in sucession.

Any idea of what am I doing wrong here? Thank you in advance!

The prints I get from those are:

Calling onLoad Open 5 Write -2

EDIT: simplified the example a bit more, and added the suggestions from the comments.