![]() ![]() Ī complete reference can be found in a MIT Press book titled The Hacker's Dictionary. Metasyntactic variables used commonly across all programming languages include foobar, foo, bar, baz, qux, quux, corge, grault, garply, waldo, fred, plugh, xyzzy, and thud several of these words are references to the game Colossal Cave Adventure. The typical names may depend however on the subculture that has developed around a given programming language. Metasyntactic variables are used to name entities such as variables, functions, and commands whose exact identity is unimportant and serve only to demonstrate a concept, which is useful for teaching programming.ĭue to English being the foundation-language, or lingua franca, of most computer programming languages, these variables are commonly seen even in programs and examples of programs written for other spoken-language audiences. īy mathematical analogy, a metasyntactic variable is a word that is a variable for other words, just as in algebra letters are used as variables for numbers. The words foo and bar are good examples as they are used in over 330 Internet Engineering Task Force Requests for Comments, the documents which define foundational internet technologies like HTTP (web), TCP/IP, and email protocols. These words are commonly found in source code and are intended to be modified or substituted before real-world usage. For usage in spoken languages, see Placeholder name.Ī metasyntactic variable is a specific word or set of words identified as a placeholder in computer science and specifically computer programming. For metasyntactic variables as used in formal logic, see Metavariable (logic). This article is about metasyntactic variables in computer science and programming. ![]()
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