How to limit a Kotlin project to a certain Java API version

Support
1

I’m aware of the ability to set the generated bytecode to a specific java version via KotlinCompile:

tasks.withType<KotlinCompile>() {
    kotlinOptions.jvmTarget = "1.8"
}

I was wondering if there’s a possible way to lock the Java API to 1.8 as well. The above configuration will still allow me to use Java methods introduced in Java 9, 10 and so on.

2

This feature isn’t supported by Kotlin, however you can consider to inspect the java.version properties or use a multi-release JAR.

3

Thanks for your answer, it’s unfortunate to hear the feature is missing. I’ll take your suggestion of inspecting the java version for now.

4

You can set kotlinOptions.jdkHome to the path to a JDK 1.8, which will be used to resolve Java API at compile time.