Can I recompile a JAR made with JDK 7 using JDK 6?

Question

I have a JAR someone else made and compiled with JDK 7 without source code that I want to recompile using JDK 6. The reason is that I only have JRE 6, so I can't run the JAR.

I know Java Decompiler can decompile the class files and export the source, which I can then compile, but it gets messy that way. Also, I tried it, and there are a bunch of syntax errors that JD probably caused. Is there a tool that'll just take a JAR and output a recompiled JAR? Mac is preferable, but I can run Linux or Windows.

Answer 1

There are tools out there, but they all come with strings attached. Unfortunately I am not aware of any that will backport from 7 to 6 so the answer is probably NO.

See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_backporting_tools