Is there a Julia command line equivalent of `python -m python_package_name`

General Usage
1

In Python, packages may have a __main__.py file. If they do you can execute the code inside of this file in the command line by using:

python -m python_package_name.

It can also accept arguments:

python -m python_package_name arg1 arg2.

This is useful for using python packages in shell scripts.

I know about julia -e "some_julia_code" but it would be nice if I didn’t have to write the Julia code in the shell or point to a julia file containing the code I want to execute. Does Julia have something similar?

2

Well, you have to do something like:

julia -e "using julia_package_name; main()"

if you want to load a package and execute the function main() of the package. Not so different, and no special syntax required.

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3

Can this accept command line arguments?

4

You can certainly pass arguments to a script from the command line, see https://docs.julialang.org/en/v1/manual/faq/#How-do-I-pass-options-to-julia-using-#!/usr/bin/env?

The arguments you pass will be available in the global variable ARGS. There are several packages that help with argument parsing should you need it.

Example:

$ julia -e "@show ARGS" 111
ARGS = ["111"]

You can replace the -e "@show ARGS" part here with your script file etc.

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5

You can create a simple shell script and put in a folder which is on your PATH variable.

For example, for unix the script will be something like:

#!/bin/bash
package="$1"
arguments="${@:2}"
exec julia -q -e "using $package; $package.main()" $arguments

Naming the script juliap, you can use like:

juliap SomePackage x y -z --foo

Not sure how to write this script on windows though.

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