# LoadError: syntax: "\\" is not a unary operator

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/loaderror-syntax-is-not-a-unary-operator/62389>\
**Category:** New to Julia\
**Tags:** question\
**Created:** [June 4, 2021, 12:47pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/loaderror-syntax-is-not-a-unary-operator/62389 "2021-06-04T12:47:52Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 9\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![localpara](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/localpara/32/25790_2.png) [@localpara](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/localpara)\
**Post date:** [June 4, 2021, 12:47pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/loaderror-syntax-is-not-a-unary-operator/62389/1 "2021-06-04T12:47:52Z")

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I get the error LoadError: syntax: "" is not a unary operator every time I try to run Julia from the terminal by typing ‘julia’. The file that doesn’t load is a startup file that says hello every time I run Julia.

**ERROR:** LoadError: syntax: "" is not a unary operator

Stacktrace:

[1] top-level scope

@ ~/.julia/config/startup.jl:1

in expression starting at /Users/alanwoo/.julia/config/startup.jl:1

I’m new to Julia and a complete newbie to programming so any help would be appreciated!

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**Author:** ![tbeason](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/tbeason/32/15898_2.png) [@tbeason](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/tbeason)\
**Post date:** [June 4, 2021, 12:55pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/loaderror-syntax-is-not-a-unary-operator/62389/2 "2021-06-04T12:55:25Z")

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Looks pretty clearly like you have a syntax error in what you’ve wrote in the file. You should post it so that we know what caused the error.

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**Author:** ![localpara](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/localpara/32/25790_2.png) [@localpara](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/localpara)\
**Post date:** [June 4, 2021, 2:19pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/loaderror-syntax-is-not-a-unary-operator/62389/3 "2021-06-04T14:19:09Z")

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```julia
println("Greetings! 你好! 안녕하세요?")

```

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**Author:** ![stevengj](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/stevengj/32/71_2.png) [@stevengj](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/stevengj)\
**Post date:** [June 4, 2021, 2:49pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/loaderror-syntax-is-not-a-unary-operator/62389/4 "2021-06-04T14:49:59Z")

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Works fine for me:

```julia
julia> println("Greetings! 你好! 안녕하세요?")
Greetings! 你好! 안녕하세요?

```

Possibly you are saving it a file using something other than the [UTF-8 encoding](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Unicode_encodings) that Julia requires. What code editor are you using?

PS. Please quote your code in posts: [PSA: how to quote code with backticks](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/psa-how-to-quote-code-with-backticks/7530)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![localpara](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/localpara/32/25790_2.png) [@localpara](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/localpara)\
**Post date:** [June 4, 2021, 3:06pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/loaderror-syntax-is-not-a-unary-operator/62389/5 "2021-06-04T15:06:12Z")

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I’m using TextEdit on Mac which saves the file as .rtf, but I change it to .jl afterwards. Is this a TextEdit issue?

Apologies, I’ll make sure to quote my code next time.

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**Author:** ![simeonschaub](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/simeonschaub/32/216566_2.png) [@simeonschaub](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/simeonschaub)\
**Post date:** [June 4, 2021, 3:37pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/loaderror-syntax-is-not-a-unary-operator/62389/6 "2021-06-04T15:37:41Z")

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> [@localpara](#):
>
> I’m using TextEdit on Mac which saves the file as .rtf, but I change it to .jl afterwards. Is this a TextEdit issue?

That is likely the issue. RTF files are not regular text files, but also contain formatting instructions. You need to save your code as a raw text file.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![localpara](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/localpara/32/25790_2.png) [@localpara](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/localpara)\
**Post date:** [June 4, 2021, 3:53pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/loaderror-syntax-is-not-a-unary-operator/62389/7 "2021-06-04T15:53:49Z")

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Thank you! I tried Sublime and it worked!

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**Author:** ![stevengj](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/stevengj/32/71_2.png) [@stevengj](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/stevengj)\
**Post date:** [June 4, 2021, 5:51pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/loaderror-syntax-is-not-a-unary-operator/62389/8 "2021-06-04T17:51:41Z")

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Yes, you definitely want a programming-oriented editor for code, and one that knows about your programming language. A lot of people working with Julia use [vscode](https://code.visualstudio.com/) with the [Julia plugin](https://github.com/julia-vscode/julia-vscode) as a GUI editor.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![localpara](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/localpara/32/25790_2.png) [@localpara](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/localpara)\
**Post date:** [June 5, 2021, 8:40am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/loaderror-syntax-is-not-a-unary-operator/62389/9 "2021-06-05T08:40:48Z")

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Thank you so much, I will definitely start using those!