We have the following settings:
gradle.properties in user home: org.gradle.java.home=C:/Java/jdk1.8.0_72 (we have to use 8 as of some plugins we use)
build.gradle: sourceCompatibility = 1.7 targetCompatibility = 1.7
So gradle runs with a JDK 8 and supposed to build with compatibility 7. At least that’s what we thought. Now if you use a Method from a java8 api like list.sort(..) the build won’t crash although I use the targets 1.7
What do we miss? 
Hi Josh,
you are only setting sourceCompatibility and targetCompatibility but you are still compiling with Java 8. You would need to set the bootClasspath on CompileOptions to a Java 7 JDK, too.
Another option would be to compile with a Java 7 javac like described in the userguide for Java 6. Note that this has quite a performance impact since Gradle will not be able to reuse the compiler daemons.
Cheers,
Stefan
That works, thank you!
I’m sorry but I fail to see in the userguide what command-line parameters should I pass to gradle to use JDK8 for itself, while using JDK7 to perform the compilation. Would you please show the command line example here?