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kotlinintellij-ideajvmversiontarget

Intellij's Kotlin Compiler "Target VM version" options are confusing

In the IntelliJ IDEA (Community 2021.1) Settings for the Kotlin Compiler, there's a "Target JVM version" menu with the following confusing options: 1.6, 1.8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 1.6.

Are these in chronological order?

Why are there two 1.6's?

Which one is the latest?

Why don't these match the JVM versions here?

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Solution

  • Are these in chronological order?

    yes, going down. (in the second image, I guess not)

    Why are there two 1.6's?

    there aren't, it's a 1.6 and a 1.8, and one is probably from a different java compiler producer

    Which one is the latest?

    1. [edit: as of today, 16]

    Why don't these match the JVM versions here?

    Likely because it is hard to support every version of java that is released.