List of Java class file format major version numbers?

Question

I saw this list of major version numbers for Java in another post:

• Java 1.2 uses major version 46
• Java 1.3 uses major version 47
• Java 1.4 uses major version 48
• Java 5 uses major version 49
• Java 6 uses major version 50
• Java 7 uses major version 51
• Java 8 uses major version 52
• Java 9 uses major version 53
• Java 10 uses major version 54
• Java 11 uses major version 55
• Java 12 uses major version 56
• Java 13 uses major version 57
• Java 14 uses major version 58
• Java 15 uses major version 59
• Java 16 uses major version 60
• Java 17 uses major version 61

Where does this list come from? Is there a specific reference for this? Preferably something that shows minor versions too?

Answer 1

These come from the class version. If you try to load something compiled for java 6 in a java 5 runtime you'll get the error, incompatible class version, got 50, expected 49. Or something like that.

See here in byte offset 7 for more info.

Additional info can also be found here.

Answer 2

I found a list of Java class file versions on the Wikipedia page that describes the class file format:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_class_file#General_layout

Under byte offset 6 & 7, the versions are listed with which Java VM they correspond to.