Maven - Use JDK 7 to Compile for JVM 5

Question

I\'ve been trying to get this to work for a while now but no luck yet.

I want to run with JAVA_HOME pointing to JDK7 but I want to compile a project for

Answer 1

Previous version of Java we not particularly good at supporting previous versions of Java. For Java 7 it appears to be much better.

Here is a program which should compile under any version.

public class Main {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        System.out.println("Hello World!");
    }
}

$ javac -target 1.7 -source 1.7 Main.java
$ javac -target 1.6 -source 1.6 Main.java
warning: [options] bootstrap class path not set in conjunction with -source 1.6
1 warning
$ javac -Xbootclasspath:/usr/java/jdk1.6.0_29/jre/lib/rt.jar -target 1.6 -source 1.6 Main.java
$ javac -Xbootclasspath:/usr/java/jdk1.5.0_22/jre/lib/rt.jar -target 1.5 -source 1.5 Main.java
$ javac -Xbootclasspath:/usr/java/jdk1.4.0_30/jre/lib/rt.jar -target 1.4 -source 1.4 Main.java
$ javac -Xbootclasspath:/usr/java/jdk1.3.1_29/jre/lib/rt.jar -target 1.3 -source 1.3 Main.java
$ javac -Xbootclasspath:/usr/java/jdk1.2.2_017/jre/lib/rt.jar -target 1.2 -source 1.2 Main.java
$ javac -Xbootclasspath:/usr/java/jdk1.1.8_16/jre/lib/rt.jar -target 1.1 -source 1.2 Main.java
$ javac -Xbootclasspath:/usr/java/jdk1.1.8_16/jre/lib/rt.jar -target 1.1 -source 1.1 Main.java
javac: invalid source release: 1.1
Usage: javac  
use -help for a list of possible options
$ javac -Xbootclasspath:/usr/java/jdk1.1.8_16/jre/lib/rt.jar -target 1.0 -source 1.0 Main.java
javac: invalid target release: 1.0
Usage: javac  
use -help for a list of possible options

If you need to compile for a previous version of Java, you need to provide a bootclasspath, ideally for the version of Java you want to compile for. Java 7 appears to be able to support all the way back to Java 1.2

Answer 2

The problem is with Java 7 backwards compatibility.

There are very few classes that don't preserve backwards compatibility due to impossible to resolve issues of different nature, DataSource happens to be one of them.

So, either you adapt your class to respect the new signatures (even when in backwards compatibility mode), or you'll be forced to use a different version of the virtual machine.

You can read further information here: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/compatibility-417013.html

Answer 3

This answer is targeted at the title of the question, not to the specific problems of the question in detail.

I ended up using this solution in my project, which allows me to use the custom bootstrap classpath selectively, by activating a maven profile. I strongly recommend using a profile for this, because otherwise it makes the build fail for anyone that does not have the environment variable set (very bad, especially for an open source project). I only activate this profile in my IDE for the "Clean & Build" action.

    <profile>
        <id>compileWithJava5</id>
        <!--
            NOTE
            Make sure to set the environment variable JAVA5_HOME
            to your JDK 1.5 HOME when using this profile.
        -->
        <properties>
            <java.5.home>${env.JAVA5_HOME}</java.5.home>
            <java.5.libs>${java.5.home}/jre/lib</java.5.libs>
            <java.5.bootclasspath>${java.5.libs}/rt.jar${path.separator}${java.5.libs}/jce.jar</java.5.bootclasspath>
        </properties>
        <build>
            <plugins>
                <plugin>
                    <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                    <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
                    <configuration>
                        <source>1.5</source>
                        <target>1.5</target>
                        <compilerArguments>
                            <bootclasspath>${java.5.bootclasspath}</bootclasspath>
                        </compilerArguments>
                    </configuration>
                </plugin>
            </plugins>
        </build>
    </profile>

Answer 4

You can use the bootclasspath configuration option on the maven-compiler-plugin if needed:

<compilerArguments>
    <bootclasspath>xxxxxxxxx</bootclasspath>
</compilerArguments>

You can read more about it here. See the note under the example.

Answer 5

To use multiple Jars in the Maven compiler options, use the ${path.separator} string between the jars:

<compilerArguments>
   <bootclasspath>${env.JAVA5_HOME}/jre/lib/rt.jar${path.separator}${env.JAVA5_HOME}/jre/lib/jce.jar${path.separator}${env.JAVA5_HOME}/jre/lib/jsse.jar</bootclasspath>
</compilerArguments>