Summary

The rmic tool documentation has no statement about support for preview features.

Problem

Classes compiled with preview features (JEP 12) use a special class file minor version number to indicate this. Tools should precisely define their support and behavior for class files with preview features. The rmic in JDK 12 will reject JDK 12 preview class files. It will accept JDK 11 preview class files (but this can be considered a bug). Rmic will not generate preview-enabled class files. There is no statement of support or non-support for preview features in the rmic tool documentation.

Note that rmic has been deprecated since JDK 8.

Solution

Add a statement to the rmic tool documentation that says that rmic does not support reading or generation of class files with preview features.

Specification

The following is to be added to the rmic tool documentation:

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Note:

The rmic compiler does not support reading of class files that have been compiled with the --enable-preview option, nor does it support generation of stub or skeleton classes that have preview features enabled.