List of Java class file format major version numbers?

These come from the class version. If you try to load something compiled for java 6 in a java 5 runtime you'll get the error, incompatible class version, got 50, expected 49. Or something like that.

See here in byte offset 7 for more info.

Additional info can also be found here.

I found a list of Java class file versions on the Wikipedia page that describes the class file format:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_class_file#General_layout

Under byte offset 6 & 7, the versions are listed with which Java VM they correspond to.

Official source for major version number:

Java Virtual Machine Specification, Chapter 4. The class File Format

The latest published version of the JVM spec can be found here.