<p dir="auto">The REPL's pathname tab completion inserts backslashes before spaces in paths, which results in an invalid string because <code class="notranslate">\ </code> is not a valid escape.  For example, if you create a file named <code class="notranslate">"foo bar"</code></p>
<div class="highlight highlight-source-julia notranslate position-relative overflow-auto" dir="auto" data-snippet-clipboard-copy-content="julia&gt; touch(&quot;foo bar&quot;)
&quot;foo bar&quot;"><pre class="notranslate">julia<span class="pl-k">&gt;</span> <span class="pl-c1">touch</span>(<span class="pl-s"><span class="pl-pds">"</span>foo bar<span class="pl-pds">"</span></span>)
<span class="pl-s"><span class="pl-pds">"</span>foo bar<span class="pl-pds">"</span></span></pre></div>
<p dir="auto">and then type <code class="notranslate">"foo&lt;TAB&gt;</code> in the REPL, you get:</p>
<div class="highlight highlight-source-julia notranslate position-relative overflow-auto" dir="auto" data-snippet-clipboard-copy-content="julia&gt; &quot;foo\ bar&quot;  
ERROR: syntax: invalid escape sequence
Stacktrace:
 [1] top-level scope at REPL[1]:0"><pre class="notranslate">julia<span class="pl-k">&gt;</span> <span class="pl-s"><span class="pl-pds">"</span>foo<span class="pl-cce">\ </span>bar<span class="pl-pds">"</span></span>  
ERROR<span class="pl-k">:</span> syntax<span class="pl-k">:</span> invalid escape sequence
Stacktrace<span class="pl-k">:</span>
 [<span class="pl-c1">1</span>] top<span class="pl-k">-</span>level scope at REPL[<span class="pl-c1">1</span>]<span class="pl-k">:</span><span class="pl-c1">0</span></pre></div>
<p dir="auto">These backslashes seem very shell-like — what are they doing in Julia filenames?</p>
<p dir="auto">Autocomplete in the REPL add <code class="notranslate">\</code> when needed to file names but julia1.0 functions do not like them</p>
<div class="snippet-clipboard-content notranslate position-relative overflow-auto" data-snippet-clipboard-copy-content="julia&gt; DelimitedFiles.readdlm(&quot;a\ a.txt&quot;)
ERROR: syntax: invalid escape sequence"><pre class="notranslate"><code class="notranslate">julia&gt; DelimitedFiles.readdlm("a\ a.txt")
ERROR: syntax: invalid escape sequence
</code></pre></div>
<div class="snippet-clipboard-content notranslate position-relative overflow-auto" data-snippet-clipboard-copy-content="julia&gt; DelimitedFiles.readdlm(&quot;a a.txt&quot;)"><pre class="notranslate"><code class="notranslate">julia&gt; DelimitedFiles.readdlm("a a.txt")
</code></pre></div>
<p dir="auto">works</p>