The target bytecode/standard library version can also be specified on a per-file basis (we have both -source and -target options). But while the VM can load a c

The target bytecode/standard library version can also be specified on a per-file basis (we have both -source and -target options). But while the VM can load a classfile of any version since the beginning of time, the javac compiler supports only a certain number of versions back in terms of source version and target version (e.g. you can't use a JDK 19 compiler to target JDK 7, but you can ask for the same language, API, and bytecode level as 15).