JULIA Installation and Running from Shell Terminal

Julia is a high-level programming language designed for scientific computing, data analysis, and numerical computations. It was created to address some of the limitations of existing scientific computing languages, such as slow execution times and poor parallelism. Julia is an open-source language that combines the ease of use of Python with the performance of C.

In this article, I will guide you through the steps to install and run Julia on your system.

Step 1: Download Julia

The first step to installing Julia is to download it from the official website. Visit the Julia website at https://julialang.org/downloads/ and select the appropriate download link for your operating system.

Step 2: Install Julia

Once you have downloaded the Julia installation file, run the installer and follow the instructions. The installation process is straightforward, and it should only take a few minutes to complete.

Step 3: Launch Julia

Once the installation is complete, launch Julia by clicking on the Julia icon in the start menu or by opening a terminal and typing the following command:

Optional: Add Julia to PATH ( To add Julia to your shell terminal)

If you want to launch Julia from the command line, first open a new terminal window, then run the following snippet from your shell (e.g., using the Terminal app, not inside the Julia prompt).

sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/bin
sudo rm -f /usr/local/bin/julia
sudo ln -s /Applications/Julia-1.8.app/Contents/Resources/julia/bin/julia /usr/local/bin/julia

This code creates a symlink to a Julia version (here 1.8) of your choosing. To launch Julia, simply type julia inside your shell and press return.

This will launch the Julia REPL (Read-Evaluate-Print Loop), which is an interactive command-line interface that allows you to execute Julia code and see the results in real-time.

Step 4: Install Packages

Julia has a vast library of packages that extend its functionality. To install a package, open the Julia REPL and type the following command:

Replace PackageName with the name of the package you want to install. For example, to install the popular DataFrames package, you would type:

Step 5: Run Julia Scripts

You can also run Julia scripts from the command line or from within the Julia REPL. To run a Julia script from the command line, navigate to the directory where the script is located and type:

Replace scriptname with the name of your Julia script.

To run a Julia script from within the Julia REPL, use the include() function:

Conclusion

Installing and running Julia is a straightforward process. Once you have installed Julia, you can start exploring its powerful features and packages for numerical and scientific computing. Whether you are a researcher, data scientist, or engineer, Julia provides a powerful and flexible platform for your computational needs.

You can refer this article for Basics of Julia

Happy Reading :)