Unable to run Kotlin program in terminal - kotlin

Question

I tried a simple Hello World Program in Kotlin.
fun main(args: Array<String>) {
println("HelloWorld!")
}
But when I tried to compile it in terminal,
kotlinc HelloWorld.kt -include-runtime -d HelloWorld.jar
I get the following.
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.UnsupportedClassVersionError: org/jetbrains/kotlin/preloading/Preloader : Unsupported major.minor version 52.0
at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass1(Native Method)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass(ClassLoader.java:803)
at java.security.SecureClassLoader.defineClass(SecureClassLoader.java:142)
at java.net.URLClassLoader.defineClass(URLClassLoader.java:449)
at java.net.URLClassLoader.access$100(URLClassLoader.java:71)
at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:361)
at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:355)
at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.java:354)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:425)
at sun.misc.Launcher$AppClassLoader.loadClass(Launcher.java:308)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:358)
at sun.launcher.LauncherHelper.checkAndLoadMain(LauncherHelper.java:482)

Answer 1

The Kotlin compiler requires Java 8 to run the compilation process. You can still target Java 6 bytecode or Java 8 bytecode as you wish, but you must use a Java 8 or newer JDK during compilation. This was announced in the Kotlin 1.1.2 release announcement.
Under "Migration Notes":
The Kotlin compiler now requires JDK 8 to run. You shouldn’t notice any changes, because most other Java development tools such as Gradle and the Android toolchain also require JDK 8, so you almost certainly already have it installed. For code generated by the compiler, Java 1.6 compatibility is still the default, and we have no plans to drop support for generating Java 1.6 compatible bytecode.