Java Version for PMD, Findbugs and Checkstyle

Question

I need to use PMD, Findbugs and Checkstyle in Eclipse for a Development project. Is Java 6 enough to use these tools? or I need java 7?

Answer 1

Notice latest PMD requires Java 7/8

running PMD only requires Java 7 (or Java 8 for Apex and the Designer).

Answer 2

Everything should work for

1.5>=Java<1.8

Findbugs

FindBugs requires JRE (or JDK) 1.5.0 or later to run. However, it can analyze programs compiled for any version of Java, from 1.0 to 1.7. Some classfiles compiled for Java 1.8 give FindBugs problems, the next major release of FindBugs will handle Java 1.8 classfiles.

http://findbugs.sourceforge.net/

Checkstyle

Added Java 7 support to the grammar. Thanks to Dinesh Bolkensteyn for patch #3403265 http://checkstyle.sourceforge.net/releasenotes.html

PMD

•2011-11-04 PMD 4.3 (download): ◦Add support for Java 7 grammer - thanks to Dinesh Bolkensteyn and SonarSource

http://pmd.sourceforge.net/pmd-4.3/

Answer 3

Java 6 is enough (Even 5 will work).