Non-javac compiler support for '--release N'

[Joe Darcy]

On 5/6/2022 6:47 AM, S A wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> to summarize my question, how is a non-javac compiler expected to 
> support the '--release N' option?
>
> E.g. the Eclipse Java compiler utilizes the archive 'lib/ct.sym' that 
> is available in the JDK distributions. As far as I'm aware, the 
> structure of this archive has no official specification and  there is 
> no guarantee that the current structure will remain stable (including 
> backporting changes). So are other compilers meant to use this 
> archive, or was it added exclusively for javac?


The format and existence of the ct.sym and the incremental symbol files 
used for --release are not exported interfaces of the JDK.

Cheers,

-Joe