Foobar: Difference between revisions

The terms '''foobar''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|f|uː|b|ɑr}}), '''foo''', '''bar''', '''baz, qux, quux''',<ref>{{Cite web |editor-last=[[Eric S. Raymond]] |title=The on-line hacker Jargon File, version 4.4.8. metasyntactic variable |url=http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/M/metasyntactic-variable.html |access-date=2024-05-30 |website=[[Jargon File]]}}</ref> and others are used as [[metasyntactic variable]]s and [[placeholder name]]s in [[computer programming]] or computer-related documentation.<ref name="rfc3092">{{IETF RFC|3092}} - Etymology of "Foo"</ref> They have been used to name entities such as [[Variable (computer science)|variable]]s, [[Function (computer science)|functions]], and [[command (computing)|command]]s whose exact identity is unimportant and serve only to demonstrate a concept.

It is possible that ''foobar'' is a playful [[allusion]]<ref name="dictionary" /> to the [[World War II]]-era military slang [[List of military slang terms#FUBAR|FUBAR]] (''Fuckedfucked Upup Beyondbeyond Allall Recognitionrecognition)''.<ref name="dictionary">{{Cite web|url=https://www.dictionary.com/e/foo/|title=What does foo mean?|publisher=[[Dictionary.com]]|access-date=2019-08-17}}</ref>

According to ana [[InternetRequest Engineeringfor Task ForceComments|RFC]] from the [[RequestInternet forEngineering Comments|RFCTask Force]], the word FOO originated as a [[nonsense word]] with its earliest documented use in the 1930s comic ''[[Smokey Stover]]'' by [[Bill Holman (cartoonist)|Bill Holman]].<ref name="rfc30922">{{cite web|last1=Eastlake|first1=D|last2=Manros|first2=C|last3=Raymond|first3=E|title=Etymology of "Foo"|url=http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3092.txt|website=The Internet Engineering Task Force|accessdate=17 April 2016}}</ref> Holman states that he used the word due to having seen it on the bottom of a jade Chinese figurine in [[Chinatown, San Francisco|San Francisco Chinatown]], purportedly signifying "good luck".<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.smokey-stover.com/history.html|title=The History of Bill Holman|date=2007-06-13|publisher=[[Smokey Stover]]|access-date=2019-08-17}}</ref> If true, this is presumably related to the Chinese word ''[[Fu (character)|fu]]'' ("{{lang|zh|福}}", sometimes transliterated ''foo'', as in ''[[Chinese guardian lions|foo dog]]''), which can mean ''happiness'' or ''blessing''.<ref>Mieke Matthyssen, "Chinese happiness: A proverbial approach to popular philosophies of life", p. 190, ch. 9 in, Gerda Wielander, Derek Hird (eds), ''Chinese Discourses on Happiness'', Hong Kong University Press, 2018 {{ISBN|9888455729}}.</ref>

The first known use of the terms in print in a programming context appears in a 1965 edition of MIT's ''[[Tech Engineering News]]''.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aOQRAQAAMAAJ&q=foobar|title=Tech Engineering News|volume=47|year=1965|publisher=[[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]]|page=63|quote=Further, it is possible to search for an effective address; e.g., if an instruction such as "add 1 foo" were used, specifying indirect addressing thru location "foo", and location "foo" contained the address of location "foobar", then an effective word search for "foobar" would find location "foo" and the location containing the "add" instruction as well.}}</ref> The use of ''foo'' in a programming context is generally credited to the [[Tech Model Railroad Club]] (TMRC) of [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology|MIT]] from {{circa |1960}}.<ref name="rfc3092" /> In the complex model system, there were [[scram]] switches located at numerous places around the room that could be thrown if something undesirable was about to occur, such as a train moving at full power towards an obstruction. Another feature of the system was a digital clock on the dispatch board. When someone hit a scram switch, the clock stopped and the display was replaced with the word "FOO"; at TMRC the scram switches are, therefore, called "Foo switches". Because of this, an entry in the 1959 ''Dictionary of the TMRC Language'' went something like this: "FOO: The first syllable of the misquoted sacred chant phrase '[[Om mani padme hum|foo mane padme hum]].' Our first obligation is to keep the foo counters turning."<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.computer-dictionary-online.org/definitions-f/foo.html|title=Computer Dictionary Online}}, computer-dictionary-online.org</ref> One book{{which|date=November 2010}} describing the MIT train room describes two buttons by the door labeled "foo" and "bar". These were general-purpose buttons and were often repurposed for whatever fun idea the MIT hackers had at the time, hence the adoption of foo and bar as general-purpose variable names. An entry in the ''Abridged Dictionary of the TMRC Language'' states:<ref>{{cite web|url=http://tmrc.mit.edu/dictionary.html#FOO|title=Abridged Dictionary of the TMRC Language|publisher=Tech Model Railroad Club of [[MIT]]|access-date=2013-03-12|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180102215225/http://tmrc.mit.edu/dictionary.html#FOO|archive-date=2 January 2018|url-status=dead}}</ref>

* [[BarCamp]], an international network of user-generated conferences.

* During the ''[[United States v. Microsoft Corp. (2001)|United States v. Microsoft Corp.]]'' trial, some evidence was presented that Microsoft had tried to use the [[Web Services Interoperability]] organization (WS-I) as a means to stifle competition, including e-mails in which top executives including [[Bill Gates]] and [[Steve Ballmer]] referred to the WS-I using the codename "foo".<ref>{{cite web