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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-14T16:35:46+00:00

I am trying to run JUnit test with a 1.5 JRE, but get the

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I am trying to run JUnit test with a 1.5 JRE, but get the error Message:

java.lang.UnsupportedClassVersionError: Bad version number in .class file

When I switch to JRE 1.6 (actually a JDK but that shouldn’t matter, right?) everythings works fine.

So the questions are:

  • Do we really need Java 6 for the current JUnit version?
  • what is the newest JUnit version, that works with Java 5?
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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    A spot check of a few classes shows that the JUnit 4.8.2 jar file was compiled with java 5, or with the java 6 compiler with the -target option set so that it makes java5-compatible class files.

    A far more likelier explanation is that you’ve accidentally compiled the test you wanted to run with a Java 6 JDK. What does:

    javap -verbose -classpath YOUR_TOP_DIRECTORY com.yourname.YourTest

    say at the top of its output for “major version”? If it says 50, then the problem is that you’ve compiled your test class for java 6 only. You need to either use a JDK 5 compiler or pass the option -target 1.5 to your compiler.

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