# What is the purpose of the @ symbol in Julia?
**URL:** https://discourse.julialang.org/t/what-is-the-purpose-of-the-symbol-in-julia/63016
**Category:** New to Julia
**Tags:** question
**Created:** [June 16, 2021, 1:49pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/what-is-the-purpose-of-the-symbol-in-julia/63016 "2021-06-16T13:49:48Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@calvar](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/calvar)
#### Post date: [June 16, 2021, 1:49pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/what-is-the-purpose-of-the-symbol-in-julia/63016/1 "2021-06-16T13:49:49Z")
Hi!
I am new to Julia and I have seen that some functions like Threads.@threads or @printf are preceded by the @ symbol. Is this some kind of naming convention? What is its purpose?
Thank you!
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### Author:  [@pdeffebach](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/pdeffebach)
#### Post date: [June 16, 2021, 1:51pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/what-is-the-purpose-of-the-symbol-in-julia/63016/2 "2021-06-16T13:51:03Z")
See the docs on metaprogramming [here](https://docs.julialang.org/en/v1/manual/metaprogramming/). The `@` indicates a macro.
If you are coming to Julia for the first time, I highly recommend reading through the documentation, starting from the beginning. It will answer all your questions about the language.
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### Author:  [@calvar](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/calvar)
#### Post date: [June 16, 2021, 1:51pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/what-is-the-purpose-of-the-symbol-in-julia/63016/3 "2021-06-16T13:51:57Z")
Ok, thank you for the answer pdeffebach.