# Space-sensitive parsing confusion
**URL:** https://discourse.julialang.org/t/space-sensitive-parsing-confusion/964
**Category:** New to Julia
**Created:** [December 15, 2016, 4:51am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/space-sensitive-parsing-confusion/964 "2016-12-15T04:51:18Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@achugb](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/achugb)
#### Post date: [December 15, 2016, 4:51am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/space-sensitive-parsing-confusion/964/1 "2016-12-15T04:51:18Z")
This is confusing.
```julia
julia> 1 + 2
3
julia> 1 +2
3
julia> [1 + 2]
1-element Array{Int64,1}:
3
julia> [1 +2]
1×2 Array{Int64,2}:
1 2
```
Is there a place in the manual where I can find this behavior described?
---
### Author:  [@ihnorton](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/ihnorton)
#### Post date: [December 15, 2016, 5:44am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/space-sensitive-parsing-confusion/964/2 "2016-12-15T05:44:17Z")
Several operators are parsed as [unary](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unary_operation) when immediately adjacent to a number or variable (the operand), but binary otherwise. I don’t think there is any explicit description like the examples you give, but the behavior follows from the operator definitions: [http://docs.julialang.org/en/release-0.5/manual/mathematical-operations/](http://docs.julialang.org/en/release-0.5/manual/mathematical-operations/)
An extra line or two in the manual might be useful since this has certainly come up before.
(The other operators with dual behavior are `+ - $ & ~`. See [here](https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/blob/0408aa206330fd2bd149efb58c0772740a0580aa/src/julia-parser.scm#L76))
---
### Author:  [@JeffreySarnoff](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/JeffreySarnoff)
#### Post date: [December 15, 2016, 6:11am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/space-sensitive-parsing-confusion/964/3 "2016-12-15T06:11:08Z")
Julia understands that you want to perform a binary operation when the infix operator (a) is not separated from the operands, or (b) is separated from both operands by a space, or (c) is separated from the second operand by a space:
```
julia> 1+2, 1 + 2, 1+ 2, [1+2], [1 + 2], [1+ 2]
3, 3, 3, [3], [3], [3]
```
When the first operand is separated from the operator by a space but the second operand is not separated from the operator by a space, then what happens inside brackets is different than before. Inside of brackets, the space character acts as a synonym for the column separator character, the semi-colon.
```
julia> [1,2,3]
3-element Array{Int64,1}:
1
2
3
julia> [1;2;3]
1×3 Array{Int64,2}:
1 2 3
julia> [1 2 3]
1×3 Array{Int64,2}:
1 2 3
```
---
### Author:  [@achugb](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/achugb)
#### Post date: [December 15, 2016, 6:11am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/space-sensitive-parsing-confusion/964/4 "2016-12-15T06:11:28Z")
Thanks! That make sense.