How to preview the new features in Java

Updated:

Marco Molteni

Every version of Java contains some features that are only in 'Preview' status and are not supported for production.

The goal of these features is to allow developers to test and comment potential future functions before they are officialy released.

To enable the new feature you need to use some flags:

compilation:
javac --enable-preview --release [release number] [your main class name].java

execution:
java --enable-preview [your main class]

Example:

javac --enable-preview --release 14 HelloWorld.java  
java  --enable-preview HelloWorld

If you are using JShell it's enough to launch the shell with the --enable-preview flag;

> jshell --enable-preview

Since Java 11 you can start a single file source without pre-compilation, to enable the preview features:

java --enable-preview [your java source code class]

Example:

java --enable-preview HelloWorld