Syntax Error: Invalid or Unexpected Token when running a nodejs file using Visual Studio Code (Using powershell)

Question

I've been trying to look for a solution but I can't seem to find one. I am a beginner to nodejs and basically I have created a new nodejs file called "app.js" inside of a directory called "HelloNode". When I use "node app.js" inside of powershell, the terminal tells me this:

This is the image of my screen

Code in VS Code:

var msg = "hello world";
console.log(msg);

Output in terminal:

PS C:\Users\yanab\HelloNode> node app.js
C:\Users\yanab\HelloNode\app.js:1
��v


SyntaxError: Invalid or unexpected token
    at wrapSafe (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:1001:16)
    at Module._compile (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:1049:27)
    at Object.Module._extensions..js (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:1114:10)
    at Module.load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:950:32)
    at Function.Module._load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:791:14)
    at Function.executeUserEntryPoint [as runMain] (internal/modules/run_main.js:72:12)
    at internal/main/run_main_module.js:17:47

Solutions I have tried:

• Tried to change environment variable
• Used the nodejs correct version using nvm use 'version number'

Notes:

• Using a combination of Visual Studio Code and nvm
• After searching for a while it might have something to do with UTF-16 encoding and how it isn't in UTF-8 encoding but I may be wrong.

Solution: Well I basically just made the file inside of vscode by right click -> new file and it worked. What I did before was use powershell and the command echo to make a new file. Don't understand what happened but making the file inside of vscode seems to be the solution.

Answer 1

I had the same situation. It turns out the file was UCS-2 encoded. After converting it to UTF-8 using notepad ++, it started working fine.

In my case, the reason for the UCS-2 encoding was the way I was filling out the file: echo 'console.log("Hollow world");' > test.js