NoClassDefFoundError in Blackberry

Background
Since lastweek I spent couple of days trying to fix an issue: The application keep throwing NoClassDefFoundError Exception in a callback method. Through JDE debugger, I can figure out exactly where the exception is threw and which object cause the exception, but when I check the code back and forth, I could not find the problem, since the class file is there. Finally I realized that I also changed the build script: before I use antenna wtkbuild task to generate the library, the new build I use regular javac task, since I used the blackberry native API. Will it cause the problem? It does not make any sense to me. I tried to switch back the build script using twkbuild task and adding the rim api in the class path, this time everything works! No more NoClassDefFoundError any more!

Finding the root cause
I compared the wtktask and the javac task with blackberry build script:

build target(with issue):

<target name="compile_rim" depends="init">
 
  <javac destdir="${outputclasses}" encoding="${src.encoding}" source="1.3" srcdir="${src.dir}:${rim.src.dir}">
    <classpath location="${rimlib.loc}"/>
   </javac>
</target> 

Created by Pretty R at inside-R.org


wtk build ( no issue)



Form the above, I can not tell the difference, and can not figure out why there is an issue. So I have to look at the antenna source code. When I looked at the WtkBuild.java, I noticed that antenna sets the javac target to 1.1 by default! This is interesting.

Check the ant document for javac task, for target attribute, it says:

Generate class files for specific VM version (e.g., 1.1 or 1.2). Note that the default value depends on the JVM that is running Ant. In particular, if you use JDK 1.4+ the generated classes will not be usable for a 1.1 Java VM unless you explicitly set this attribute to the value 1.1 (which is the default value for JDK 1.1 to 1.3). We highly recommend to always specify this attribute.

So based on the above statement, I suspect that the Ant require us to specify the target version, if we don't specify ant will use the default version.and the default target version cause the blackberry device throws the exception.

What is the target version for J2ME and Blackberry
In Antenna, the target is set to 1.1, is this the correct value for J2ME and Blackberry? To prove this, I googled and find some articles:
Managing Wireless Builds with Ant, this article from oracle mentioned that J2ME build requires target value to be 1.1:

<javac bootclasspath="${midp_lib}" destdir="build/classes" srcdir="src" target="1.1">

and I found this article in BlackBerry forum:javac -target parameter used by the rapc.exe tool
It shows that you need to use target 1.1 to build blackberry compatible application:

Rapc.exe automatically ensures that these .class files are targeted for BlackBerry® Java® Virtual Machine (BlackBerry JVM) 1.1 or later. This is done to maintain compatibility on the BlackBerry smartphones when the .class files are actually packaged in a .cod file.

If you are using a custom script that calls javac.exe and rapc.exe separately to package your application, you will have to make sure that you are calling javac.exe with -target option so that all generated .class files are compatible. This is a requirement to make sure that the generated .class files are consistent with Connected Limited Device configuration (CLDC) 1.1 BlackBerry JVM implementation.

Conclusion
Based on what I found, I know that Both J2ME and Blackberry Build need target option to 1.1. otherwise the blackberry application might have a weird issue like NoClassDefFoundError.