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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><title>foobar</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="../../jargon.css" type="text/css"/><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.61.0"/><link rel="home" href="../index.html" title="The Jargon File"/><link rel="up" href="../F.html" title="F"/><link rel="previous" href="foo.html" title="foo"/><link rel="next" href="fool.html" title="fool"/></head><body><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">foobar</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="foo.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center">F</th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="fool.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr/></div><dt><a id="foobar"/><dt xmlns="" id="foobar"><b>foobar</b>: <span xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="grammar">n.</span></dt></dt><dd><p> [very common] Another widely used
<a href="../M/metasyntactic-variable.html"><i class="glossterm">metasyntactic variable</i></a>; see <a href="foo.html"><i class="glossterm">foo</i></a> for etymology.
Probably originally propagated through DECsystem manuals by Digital
Equipment Corporation (<a href="../D/DEC.html"><i class="glossterm">DEC</i></a>) in 1960s and early
1970s; confirmed sightings there go back to 1972. Hackers do
<span class="emphasis"><em>not</em></span> generally use this to mean
<a href="FUBAR.html"><i class="glossterm">FUBAR</i></a> in either the slang or jargon sense. See also
<a href="Fred-Foobar.html"><i class="glossterm">Fred Foobar</i></a>. In RFC1639, &#8220;<span class="quote">FOOBAR</span>&#8221; was
made an abbreviation for &#8220;<span class="quote">FTP Operation Over Big Address
Records</span>&#8221;, but this was an obvious <a href="../B/backronym.html"><i class="glossterm">backronym</i></a>.
It has been plausibly suggested that &#8220;<span class="quote">foobar</span>&#8221; spread among
early computer engineers partly because of FUBAR and partly because
&#8220;<span class="quote">foo bar</span>&#8221; parses in electronics techspeak as an inverted foo
signal; if a digital signal is active low (so a negative or zero-voltage
condition represents a &quot;1&quot;) then a horizontal bar is commonly placed over
the signal label.</p></dd><div class="navfooter"><hr/><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="foo.html">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="../F.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="fool.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">foo </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="../index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> fool</td></tr></table></div></body></html>