Syntax error, parameterized types are only available if source level is 1.5
I recently installed Eclipse and all of a sudden my Java applications failed to build with the error:
Syntax error, parameterized types are only available if source level is 1.5
After a bit of Googling I figured out that Eclipse installed a different JVM and set it as the default one. On Ubuntu (at least) the way to change the default JVM is by typing this into the console:
sudo update-alternatives --config java
It will show you which JVM is currently selected and allow you to choose a different one as default.
It seems installing Eclipse was a really bad idea. I’ve been getting more cryptic messages from the Java compiler, so I tried javac -v and low and behold it’s a special Eclipse flavour of the compiler. Running this seemed to help:
sudo update-java-alternatives -s java-6-sun
Now I have the Sun compiler back, but I am wondering how many other skeletons Eclipse has left in the wardrobe.