# LOAD\_PATH includes unquoted individual entries

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/load-path-includes-unquoted-individual-entries/57746>\
**Category:** Internals & Design\
**Created:** [March 22, 2021, 8:19pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/load-path-includes-unquoted-individual-entries/57746 "2021-03-22T20:19:24Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 11\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![sylvaticus](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/sylvaticus/32/203883_2.png) [@sylvaticus](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/sylvaticus)\
**Post date:** [March 22, 2021, 8:19pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/load-path-includes-unquoted-individual-entries/57746/1 "2021-03-22T20:19:24Z")

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It seems that somehow individual entries in LOAD\_PATH are not quoted:

```julia
lobianco@NCY-BETA-ALOBIANCO:~/.julia/dev/BetaML$ cd "docs/src/tutorials/A regression task: sharing bike demand prediction"
lobianco@NCY-BETA-ALOBIANCO:~/.julia/dev/BetaML/docs/src/tutorials/A regression task: sharing bike demand prediction$ julia
               _
   _ _ _(_)_ | Documentation: https://docs.julialang.org
  (_) | (_) (_) |
   _ _ _| |_ __ _ | Type "?" for help, "]?" for Pkg help.
  | | | | | | |/ _` | |
  | | |_| | | | (_| | | Version 1.6.0-rc2 (2021-03-11)
 _/ |\ __'_|_|_|\__'_| | Official https://julialang.org/ release
|__/ |

(@v1.6) pkg> activate .
  Activating environment at `~/.julia/dev/BetaML/docs/src/tutorials/A regression task: sharing bike demand prediction/Project.toml`

julia> include("betaml_tutorial_regression_sharingBikes.jl")
[Info: Precompiling DataFrames [a93c6f00-e57d-5684-b7b6-d8193f3e46c0]
ERROR: LoadError: LOAD_PATH entries cannot contain ':'
Stacktrace:
 [1] error(s::String)
   @ Base ./error.jl:33
 [2] create_expr_cache(pkg::Base.PkgId, input::String, output::String, concrete_deps::Vector{Pair{Base.PkgId, UInt64}}, internal_stderr::Base.TTY, internal_stdout::Base.TTY)
   @ Base ./loading.jl:1231
 [3] compilecache(pkg::Base.PkgId, path::String, internal_stderr::Base.TTY, internal_stdout::Base.TTY)
   @ Base ./loading.jl:1326
 [4] compilecache(pkg::Base.PkgId, path::String)
   @ Base ./loading.jl:1306
 [5] _require(pkg::Base.PkgId)
   @ Base ./loading.jl:1021
 [6] require(uuidkey::Base.PkgId)
   @ Base ./loading.jl:914
 [7] require(into::Module, mod::Symbol)
   @ Base ./loading.jl:901
 [8] include(fname::String)
   @ Base.MainInclude ./client.jl:444
 [9] top-level scope
   @ REPL[2]:1
in expression starting at /home/lobianco/.julia/dev/BetaML/docs/src/tutorials/A regression task: sharing bike demand prediction/betaml_tutorial_regression_sharingBikes.jl:15

```

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ufechner7](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/ufechner7/32/51363_2.png) [@ufechner7](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/ufechner7)\
**Post date:** [March 22, 2021, 8:42pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/load-path-includes-unquoted-individual-entries/57746/2 "2021-03-22T20:42:04Z")

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> [@sylvaticus](#):
>
> `/A regression task: sharing bike demand prediction/Project.toml`

Do you have spaces in the name of your project folder?

Remove them or replace them with underscores…

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![sylvaticus](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/sylvaticus/32/203883_2.png) [@sylvaticus](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/sylvaticus)\
**Post date:** [March 22, 2021, 8:45pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/load-path-includes-unquoted-individual-entries/57746/3 "2021-03-22T20:45:39Z")

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yes, but I thought it wasn’t needed…

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ufechner7](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/ufechner7/32/51363_2.png) [@ufechner7](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/ufechner7)\
**Post date:** [March 22, 2021, 8:46pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/load-path-includes-unquoted-individual-entries/57746/4 "2021-03-22T20:46:18Z")

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Well, it is. Never use spaces in a folder name. Very easy…  
Not sure if that is mentioned in the Julia manual, though…

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![sylvaticus](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/sylvaticus/32/203883_2.png) [@sylvaticus](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/sylvaticus)\
**Post date:** [March 22, 2021, 8:49pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/load-path-includes-unquoted-individual-entries/57746/5 "2021-03-22T20:49:10Z")

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I understand that “don’t use space” is easy… but it looks like an half bug to me… after all, this is why we have quotes 🙂 🙂

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**Author:** ![StefanKarpinski](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/stefankarpinski/32/24_2.png) [@StefanKarpinski](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/StefanKarpinski)\
**Post date:** [March 22, 2021, 9:22pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/load-path-includes-unquoted-individual-entries/57746/6 "2021-03-22T21:22:43Z")

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It doesn’t seem like spaces are the issue here, but rather that the path has a `:` in it. Spaces should work fine.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ufechner7](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/ufechner7/32/51363_2.png) [@ufechner7](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/ufechner7)\
**Post date:** [March 22, 2021, 10:09pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/load-path-includes-unquoted-individual-entries/57746/7 "2021-03-22T22:09:36Z")

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Thanks that you pointed that out. Nevertheless: GNU make does not work with spaces in a folder name, and Julia is using GNU make as build tool, so better avoid spaces and many other characters in any folder name. For a list of characters to avoid, see: [Characters to Avoid in Filenames and Directories | Michigan Tech](https://www.mtu.edu/umc/services/websites/writing/characters-avoid/)

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**Author:** ![ericphanson](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/ericphanson/32/215186_2.png) [@ericphanson](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/ericphanson)\
**Post date:** [March 22, 2021, 10:19pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/load-path-includes-unquoted-individual-entries/57746/8 "2021-03-22T22:19:37Z")

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Julia only uses `make` if you are building Julia itself (not simply using Julia, and most users just download the binaries anyway). Spaces are pretty common in file paths on Windows and they are well-supported by Julia AFAIK.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ufechner7](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/ufechner7/32/51363_2.png) [@ufechner7](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/ufechner7)\
**Post date:** [March 22, 2021, 10:23pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/load-path-includes-unquoted-individual-entries/57746/9 "2021-03-22T22:23:49Z")

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Well, Julia is cross platform, and not all packages have binary artifacts that you can download. Even if you do not compile Julia itself building of some packages will fail if you have spaces in your file paths. Better avoid and teach Windows users that spaces are evil for open source programmers.

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**Author:** ![ericphanson](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/ericphanson/32/215186_2.png) [@ericphanson](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/ericphanson)\
**Post date:** [March 22, 2021, 10:28pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/load-path-includes-unquoted-individual-entries/57746/10 "2021-03-22T22:28:21Z")

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Usually cross-platform means it tries to work on all platforms / whatever weird setup the user has, which is kind of the opposite of saying it needs to follow the decisions of GNU `make`. I agree spaces in paths can cause issues, but it really seems like FUD here since as Stefan pointed out the issue is the colon, not the spaces.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ufechner7](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/ufechner7/32/51363_2.png) [@ufechner7](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/ufechner7)\
**Post date:** [March 23, 2021, 7:46am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/load-path-includes-unquoted-individual-entries/57746/11 "2021-03-23T07:46:47Z")

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As you stated correctly, the problem in the original question was a colon and not spaces. I split off a general discussion about best practice for characters in path names here: [Which characters to avoid in file and path names](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/which-characters-to-avoid-in-file-and-path-names/57772)