Zoom Non interactive execution

Last updated: January 12, 2023

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Sourcing a file

Julia scripts have a .jl extension.

The include function sources a Julia script (in a REPL session or in another script):

include("file.jl")

The code contained in file.jl is thus run non interactively.

You can run scripts by passing them to the julia command on the command line:

$ julia script.jl

Note that this code is run in a terminal, not in Julia, as is indicated by the $ prompt.

You can also evaluate single expressions in Julia from the command line by using the flag -e:

$ julia -e 'println(2 + 3)'

If you want to pass arguments to the julia command itself, you need to add them before the script or the Julia expression.

Example:

$ julia -O script.jl

To pass arguments to the script (or Julia expression if you use -e), you add them after the script or expression:

$ julia script.jl arg1 arg2 arg3

arg1, arg2, arg3 will be passed in the global constant ARGS and interpreted as arguments to the script.

Example passing arguments to an expression:

$ julia -e 'for x in ARGS; println(x); end' 2 3

2
3

To pass arguments both to the julia command and to the script/expression, you need to add the -- delimiter before the script/expression:

$ julia [switches] -- [programfile] [args...]

Example:

$ julia -O -- script.jl arg1 arg2