A question of foo!

[nickwaughman]

Can anyone please tell me what foo is for. I have been trying to find out for ages.

Is foo just used to demonstrate a piece of code?

Or does it have a specific use.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Regards,

Nick.

[freakysid]

foo is the first of the metasyntactic variables which is a fancy way of saying that it is a generic placeholder name for a variable. Other examples are foo, bar, foobar, quux (although for some reason I like to use my own "zoot").

more on the metasyntactic variables
http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/jargon/ja...tic%20variable

more on foo
http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/jargon/jargon.html#foo

Another scheme of metasyntactic variables that you often come accross for examples of strongly typed languages is:

myInt = 1;
myString = "foo";
myCat = new Cat;

Some people will just use:
var1, var2, var3, etc...

[Defender1]

foo is just something most programmers use as general variable names.
it really has no significance.

Stuff like $row, $sql, etc.. are used as well.
a variable name is just that: a name.

[freddydoesphp]

Thanks for clearing up exactly what freakysid just posted

[Defender1]

i know that's what he posted.
and i reposted it just like that because i thought it'd be easier to understand.

[nickwaughman]

Thanks Guys,

To be honest, foo has been driving me crazy.

At least I know now my foo's from my foobars.

Cheers

Nick.