Editing GNU Classpath (section)

== Support for the new language features in Java 1.5 ==
Before version 0.95, each GNU Classpath release consisted of two separate release tarballs; one that represented the state of the main [[Branching (software)|development branch]] and another that contained the contents of a more experimental branch, supporting the additions, such as generics, enumerations and annotations, present in Java 1.5.<ref name="generics-release">{{Citation | url = https://www.gnu.org/software/classpath/announce/20051102.html | series = Software |title= The GNU Project | contribution = GNU Classpath "95% and counting" 0.19 released | publisher = The Free Software Foundation | type = announcement | date = 2005-11-02 |access-date=31 May 2011}}.</ref>

Since version 0.95,<ref name="release">{{Citation | url = https://www.gnu.org/software/classpath/announce/20090205.html | series = Software |title= The GNU Project | contribution = The release of GNU Classpath 0.98 "Better Late Than Never | publisher = The Free Software Foundation | type = announcement | date = 2009-02-05}}.</ref> Java 1.5 additions like generics have been fully integrated into the main branch. The branch can be built by using the [[Eclipse (software)|Eclipse]] compiler, ecj, to compile Java 1.5 source code to bytecode.  In the case of GCJ, it uses ecj to perform this initial stage, then converts the bytecode to native code.  From 0.95 onwards, GNU Classpath also supports compiling and running the newly [[GPL]]ed open-source [[javac]] [[Java compiler|compiler]] using GNU Classpath and also allows the GNU Classpath class library, tools and examples to be compiled with [[javac]] itself.