How To Fix Loading “Gruntfile.js” tasks…ERROR >> SyntaxError: Invalid or unexpected token

I create a grunt project and when I run the command grunt in a terminal to build the project, I encounter the error message Loading “Gruntfile.js” tasks…ERROR >> SyntaxError: Invalid or unexpected token. This article will tell you how to fix it.

1. How To Fix Loading “Gruntfile.js” tasks…ERROR >> SyntaxError: Invalid or unexpected token.

1. Open a terminal and go to the grunt project saved folder.
2. Run the command grunt, then it shows the below error message.

   $ grunt
   Loading "Gruntfile.js" tasks...ERROR
   >> SyntaxError: Invalid or unexpected token
   Warning: Task "default" not found. Use --force to continue.
   
   Aborted due to warnings.
   

3. From the above error message, we can see that this is a syntax error, but it does point out which code line throws the error.
4. So we should run the command grunt –verbose in the terminal again, this time it will tell you which code line in the file Gruntfile.js throws the error.

   $ grunt --verbose
   Initializing
   Command-line options: --verbose, --gruntfile=/Users/songzhao/Documents/WorkSpace/dev2qa.com-example-code/PythonExampleProject/js-game-engine/phaser/hello-world/Gruntfile.js
   
   Reading "Gruntfile.js" Gruntfile...OK
   
   Registering Gruntfile tasks.
   Loading "Gruntfile.js" tasks...ERROR
   >> /Users/songzhao/Documents/WorkSpace/dev2qa.com-example-code/PythonExampleProject/js-game-engine/phaser/hello-world/Gruntfile.js:12
   >>         pkg: grunt.file.readJSON(‘package.json’), 
   >>                                  
   >> 
   >> SyntaxError: Invalid or unexpected token
   >>     at wrapSafe (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:979:16)
   >>     at Module._compile (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:1027:27)
   >>     at Object.Module._extensions..js (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:1092:10)
   >>     at Module.load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:928:32)
   >>     at Function.Module._load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:769:14)
   >>     at Module.require (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:952:19)
   >>     at require (internal/modules/cjs/helpers.js:88:18)
   >>     at loadTask (/Users/songzhao/Documents/WorkSpace/dev2qa.com-example-code/PythonExampleProject/js-game-engine/phaser/hello-world/node_modules/grunt/lib/grunt/task.js:313:10)
   >>     at Task.task.init (/Users/songzhao/Documents/WorkSpace/dev2qa.com-example-code/PythonExampleProject/js-game-engine/phaser/hello-world/node_modules/grunt/lib/grunt/task.js:450:5)
   >>     at Object.grunt.tasks (/Users/songzhao/Documents/WorkSpace/dev2qa.com-example-code/PythonExampleProject/js-game-engine/phaser/hello-world/node_modules/grunt/lib/grunt.js:129:8)
   
   No tasks specified, running default tasks.
   

5. The above output shows that the syntax error happens in code line 12 of the file Gruntfile.js.
6. Open the Gruntfile.js in a text editor, and go to the code line 12, I found the error is because of the wrong encoding of the single quotes( ‘ ), below is the correct one.

   pkg: grunt.file.readJSON('package.json'),

7. Run the command grunt in the terminal again, and you will find the error is fixed.
8. Below is my grunt project’s file structure.

   -rw-r--r--    1  Gruntfile.js
   drwxr-xr-x  374  node_modules
   -rw-r--r--    1  package-lock.json
   -rw-r--r--    1  package.json
   drwxr-xr-x    6  src