# Whitespace sensitivity

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/whitespace-sensitivity/76211>\
**Category:** Internals & Design\
**Created:** [February 11, 2022, 9:05am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/whitespace-sensitivity/76211 "2022-02-11T09:05:29Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 12

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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:** [February 11, 2022, 3:30pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/whitespace-sensitivity/76211/12 "2022-02-11T15:30:46Z")

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Opinions about whether this is ugly or improves clarity are besides the point really. Calling a function as `f ( x )` was originally allowed in Julia syntax, but it caused a syntax ambiguity in macro calls, so it was disallowed. The ambiguity, if I recall correctly, was that we allow macros to be called either as `@m a b` or as `@m(a, b)`, both of which are useful in different cases. But then what does `@m (a, b)` mean? Is it a call with two arguments or a call with a single tuple argument? If you disallow the whitespace between the function and its arguments in function call syntax, then this ambiguity is resolved (it has to be a macro with a single argument that is a tuple).

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_[View the full topic](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/whitespace-sensitivity/76211)._