Here's the thing:
Me and my teammates are now working on a Java project, but I'm almost new to Java development. The thing is that I recently updated my local Java version to 15.0.2, however, they created the project with JDK 1.8 (Java 8 perhaps?).
We are worried that this might cause some conflicts since our Java versions are not corresponding, and I'm also not familiar with the relationship between Java version and JDK version (Just like Java 8 and JDK 1.8).
Could somebody give me some explanations of this? Thanks a lot!
We are worried that this might cause some conflicts since our Java versions are not corresponding ...
Yes, you could run into problems:
There are significant differences in the Java language and Java standard class libraries between Java 8 and Java 15. Code written for Java 15 using Java 15 may not compile on Java 8.
Java 8 and Java 15 tool chains produce compiled code with different classfile version numbers. Code compiled for Java 15 will not run on a Java 8 platform.
It is possible to work around these problems, but it is much simpler if all project members use the same Java version.
If you are new to Java, my recommendation is to install and use Java 8. Note that it is possible to have different versions of Java installed simultaneously, and use different versions for different projects.
... and I'm also not familiar with the relationship between Java version and JDK version (Just like Java 8 and JDK 1.8).
It is pretty straightforward. Java 8 is JDK 1.8, Java 9 is JDK 1.9, and so on. This started with Java 5 / JDK 1.5
The weird numbering is a result of a Sun Management / Marketing decision when naming Java 5:
"The number "5.0" is used to better reflect the level of maturity, stability, scalability and security of the J2SE."
Source: https://docs.oracle.com/javase/1.5.0/docs/relnotes/version-5.0.html
(You could also say that the people who made this decision didn't understand the principles of semantic version numbering.)
Related
I have a program for work that I'm told will only use Java version 8 update 192 to run correctly. When I downloaded eclipse, it's suggesting that I use JRE 17.0.2 but I recalled my coworker saying I need Java 8 update 192 otherwise it won't work. Does the JRE version matter? Is it irrelevant?
Perhaps I need to download JRE 8.192? I'm not sure. Any help would be appreciated.
I have a program for work that I'm told will only use Java version 8 update 192 to run correctly.
I would doubt the accuracy of that statement. I would say that someone is making a statement without evidence ... if that is what they actually said.
Maybe a more accurate statement is that the program is only known to run on that particular version ...
Anyway, it will probably run on a later version of Java 8, or Java 11. Java 17 is less certain because of the issue of package sealing / blocking of access to internal packages that occurred in Java 16. (Some of the sealing / blocking started in Java 9 ... but there are easy workarounds ...)
Q: Do you need a JRE?
A: No. A JDK will work just as well. (A JDK distro includes a JRE.) But unless there are strong counter-indications, you need the latest version of Java 8, 11 or 17. Java 8 u192 is years out of date.
The only way to be sure that the application will work on a particular version of Java is to try it. In general, there are no shortcuts.
Java 8 is still available, as the first Long-Term Support (LTS) version. The current release is Update 331. I would suggest starting with the latest update of Java 8.
Be aware that Java 8 is not receiving regular updates for the public except for critical security patches. You may want to consider paying for a support contract from any number of vendors such as Azul Systems or Oracle to get support including possible additional updates releases through the rest of this decade.
Generally Java apps will run on later versions of Java without any modifications needed. The Java team at Oracle and the OpenJDK community place a very high priority on preserving that compatibility.
However, there are exceptions to the compatibility policy. In particular: Java 9 introduced the Java Platform Module System which caused some problems in some apps. And in later versions of Java some libraries that were previously bundled are now removed. Some of those removed libraries were transferred to the Jakarta EE project at the Eclipse Foundation. Some were abandoned for lack of interest such as CORBA.
Some few parts of Java that were for years marked as “deprecated for eventual removal” have now been removed.
If you consider moving beyond Java 8, I suggest your first step be sitting down to read through the Release Notes for every release of Java. They are quite well-written. They should alert you to any issues that may affect your app.
FYI, Java 17 is the latest LTS version. Java 18 is current.
As in the other answers, an application built for Java 8 will probably work fine in Java 17, with some caveats, but if you absolutely need the final product to run under Java 8, go get a real Java 8 runtime and set it up in your IDE. Building a Java application for any specific Java version is best done by having an actual copy of that runtime present, preferably a JDK. By having an exact version of its standard library to compile against, you can avoid accidentally referring to packages, classes, and methods added to, or removed from, later versions. You can get an OpenJDK build of Java 8 from https://adoptium.net/?variant=openjdk8 . Be sure to ask your co-worker why they're mentioning an outdated patch version.
Additionally, keep in mind that Eclipse is itself a large Java application. Running it requires Java, and a growing number of downloads include a Java runtime for that simple reason, even the ones that do not include Java development tools. You don't have to compile your code against that version of Java, though--you probably don't even want to since JDK downloads will include JavaDoc for the standard library, among other useful extras.
I'm currently leaning HTTP/2 Client in Java9~10 through this.
Java 9 does have HttpRequest.BodyProcessor interface while Java 10 does not have HttpRequest.BodyProcessor, but instead it does have HttpRequest.BodyPublisher. Both interfaces are similar.
Why are Java change Interface's name? I think backward compatibility ignored.
The HttpClient has been a part of an incubator module with Java 9 and 10. So what one saw there was more of a prototyped work which though ideally shouldn't change much, yet doesn't guarantee the same.
From the incubator JEP#Incubator Modules:
An incubating feature is an API of non-trivial size that is under
development for eventual inclusion in the Java SE Platform, or the
JDK, but is not yet sufficiently proven.
If you wish to use the standard module you can make use of it in Java 11, where it is named as java.net.http. [notice that its marked as since Java 11 and not 9 or 10]
The jdk.incubator.httpclient module not found in Java11 could help you migrate the usage of HttpClient in Java 11 if you were already using that in Java9/10.
Slightly Off-topic: If you could compare the source code in the two JDK, you would find that there have been updates to the methods in the BodyPublisher as compared to its previous state, both in Java 10 as well as Java 11.
I compiled my old JAR files in Java 7 and my production environment has Java 8. Is there anything I need to be careful about directly deploying the JAR files onto Java 8 Environment? I test ran them on Java 8 and it worked fine. Could I encounter any problems or should I be fine? I was wondering this because I was debating removing Java 8 and installing Java 7.
EDIT: A side question: Do companies update their code when they update their Java version? I can't imagine how painful this must be so have your app working on a previous version and then completely fail on the new version.
I was wondering this because I was debating removing Java 8 and installing Java 7.
I assume you mean the other way around?
Java attempts to maintain backwards compatibility as far as it can, so theoretically at least you should be ok.
In practice however, issues do sometimes come up, so I'd advocate testing thoroughly. These may be due to regression bugs, or (more likely in my experience) buggy code that might have run fine under Java 7, but not under 8. (FWIW, I had a couple of FX apps that mixbehaved under 8 but ran fine under 7, it turned out both were due to bugs in my code that coincidentally had no unusual side effects when running with 7.)
Usually, there should be no problem. Otherwise you would have a hard time to use any third-party libraries not explicitly compiled for Java SE 8.
I recommend to run your automated tests on a continuous integration server such as Jenkins using Java SE 8 and see if you have any issues.
It is safe to package Java 8 application with jar dependencies compiled with Java 7. Given that said, however, keep in mind differences in JDK 7 and 8, that can result the same Java code could behave differently when running on JDK 8 vs JDK 7 (refer to JDK 8 release notes)
I am a little confused.
Oracle says Java 8 is highly compatible with Java 7 (backward). But, what possibilities exist that Java 8 program can be run on Java 7 successfully (SE/EE)?
If point one was true, Java 8 applications will be deployed and executed on a Java 7 server support? for example, Tomcat 8 or WildFly?
In general, no.
The backwards compatibility means that you can run Java 7 program on Java 8 runtime, not the other way around.
There are several reasons for that:
Bytecode is versioned and JVM checks if it supports the version it finds in .class files.
Some language constructs cannot be expressed in previous versions of bytecode.
There are new classes and methods in newer JRE's which won't work with older ones.
If you really, really want (tip: you don't), you can force the compiler to treat the source as one version of Java and emit bytecode for another, using something like this:
javac -source 1.8 -target 1.7 MyClass.java
(the same for Maven), and compile against JDK7, but in practice it will more often not work than work. I recommend you don't.
EDIT: JDK 8 apparently doesn't support this exact combination, so this won't work. Some other combinations of versions do work.
There are also programs to convert newer Java programs to work on older JVM's. For converting Java 8 to 5-7, you can try https://github.com/orfjackal/retrolambda To get lower than 5, you can pick one of these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_backporting_tools
None of these hacks will give you new Java 8 classes and methods, including functional programming support for collections, streams, time API, unsigned API, and so on. So I'd say it's not worth it.
Or, since you want to run your Java 8 JEE applications on an application server, just run your entire server on Java 8, it may work.
Backward compatibility means
You can Run Lower configuration on Higher Configuration not Vice-Versa .
Well, there is the -target compiler option, which lets you target the class file format of previous java versions. However, this doesn't fix or detect things such as using classes or methods introduced in JDK APIs after the target version.
No backward compatibility means that Java7 programs will run under Java8 but the reverse is not always true
You may also check Oracle Limit Backward Compatibility
In general, new versions have to give backwards compatibility, so people dont have to throw their work and can upgrade easily. The other way round (newer version running in older version) is not necesarily true because if you use some new implemented feature, that feature obviously does not exist in the previous version and won't work.
Regards
I generated stubs from WSDL, compiled in java 8 and was able to deploy them on server having java 1.6 jvm on it.
My old projects use Java 6 (1.6), and I don't know when I update (Java 7), they can run fine ?
There is an official list of known incompatibilities between java 6 and java 7 from Oracle (including descriptions of both binary and source-level incompatibilities in public APIs).
Also you can look at the independent analysis of API changes in the Java API Tracker project: http://abi-laboratory.pro/java/tracker/timeline/jre/
The report is generated by the japi-compliance-checker tool.
They should do, yes. Java has a reasonably strong history of backward compatibility. However, if these are in any way important projects you should still perform a thorough test pass before deploying anywhere production-like.
There shouldn't be any compatibility differences as the JVM is basically the same. However it is early days so there may be subtle differences which cause a problem which people are not yet aware of.
e.g. Eclipse looks at the Supplier in the java.exe on Windows and sets the command line arguments differently for different suppliers. It has a problem with Java 6 update 22 because Oracle wanted to change it from "Sun" to "Oracle". I believe this has been changed so it is "Oracle" in Java 7 (but still "Sun" for Java 6)
My point being, that if you write generic Java code, you shouldn't have a problem. However, if you are doing something a bit unusual, you are likely to need to re-test your application.
As was already stated backward compatibility is a very important aspect in new Java releases, so in general there should be no problems in switching to a newer Java version. In this case, however, Java 7 seems to have a few bugs in the new hotspot compiler optimizations. The Apache Software Foundation has issued a warning that their products Lucene and Solr are affected by these bugs.
http://lucene.apache.org/#28+July+2011+-+WARNING%3A+Index+corruption+and+crashes+in+Apache+Lucene+Core+%2F+Apache+Solr+with+Java+7
The affected loop optimizations can be switched off by starting java with -XX:-UseLoopPredicate.
AFAIS here, there's no Java 6 features which get deprecated in Java 7 so yes, your project should run fine.