# Supported Java Versions

## Overview of supported Java language versions

Usually the latest non-preview Java Version is the default version.

Java Version | Alias | Supported by PMD since
--- | --- | ---
18-preview |  | 6.44.0
18 (default) |  | 6.44.0
17-preview |  | 6.37.0
17 |  | 6.37.0
16 |  | 6.32.0
15 |  | 6.27.0
14 |  | 6.22.0
13 |  | 6.18.0
12 |  | 6.13.0
11 |  | 6.6.0
10 | 1.10 | 6.4.0
9 | 1.9 | 6.0.0
8 | 1.8 | 5.1.0
7 | 1.7 | 5.0.0
6 | 1.6 | 3.9
5 | 1.5 | 3.0
1.4 |  | 1.2.2
1.3 |  | 1.0.0

## Using Java preview features

In order to analyze a project with PMD that uses preview language features, you’ll need to enable it via the environment variable `PMD_JAVA_OPTS` and select the new language version, e.g. `18-preview`:

    export PMD_JAVA_OPTS=--enable-preview
    ./run.sh pmd -language java -version 18-preview ...

Note: we only support preview language features for the latest two java versions.