P3
I"m not sure this should be a compiler bug, or spec, bug or documenation issue. It's a concern for customer management regarding the -target 1.4 option.
My concern is that "-source 1.5 -target 1.4" will lead customers to believe they can use 1.5 language features in their code and compile it to run on a 1.4.x jdk installation. What we are saying we mean by -target 1.4 is not necessarily what customers will expect it to deliver. I think while we refer to which class file specification we're generating, they'll expect vm and jdk compatibility.
-target 1.4 may generate class file version 48, but it may also generate references to classes not found in the 1.4.x rt.jar and will result in NoClassDefFoundError errors at runtime.
This may take some customer preparation and management.
Just thought I'd get the ol' ball rolling.
###@###.### 2003-12-18
My concern is that "-source 1.5 -target 1.4" will lead customers to believe they can use 1.5 language features in their code and compile it to run on a 1.4.x jdk installation. What we are saying we mean by -target 1.4 is not necessarily what customers will expect it to deliver. I think while we refer to which class file specification we're generating, they'll expect vm and jdk compatibility.
-target 1.4 may generate class file version 48, but it may also generate references to classes not found in the 1.4.x rt.jar and will result in NoClassDefFoundError errors at runtime.
This may take some customer preparation and management.
Just thought I'd get the ol' ball rolling.
###@###.### 2003-12-18