Question

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

Java	Major version
22	66
21	65
20	64
19	63
18	62
17	61
16	60
15	59
14	58
13	57
12	56
11	55
10	54
9	53
8	52
7	51
6	50
5	49
1.4	48
1.3	47
1.2	46
1.1	45
1.0.2	45

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.