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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><title>metasyntactic variable</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="../M.html" title="M"/><link rel="previous" href="meta-bit.html" title="meta bit"/><link rel="next" href="MFTL.html" title="MFTL"/></head><body><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">metasyntactic variable</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="meta-bit.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center">M</th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="MFTL.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr/></div><dt><a id="metasyntactic-variable"/><dt xmlns="" id="metasyntactic-variable"><b>metasyntactic variable</b>: <span xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="grammar">n.</span></dt></dt><dd><p> A name used in examples and understood to stand for whatever thing
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is under discussion, or any random member of a class of things under
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discussion. The word <a href="../F/foo.html"><i class="glossterm">foo</i></a> is the
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<a href="../C/canonical.html"><i class="glossterm">canonical</i></a> example. To avoid confusion, hackers
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never (well, hardly ever) use ‘foo’ or other words like it as
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permanent names for anything. In filenames, a common convention is that
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any filename beginning with a metasyntactic-variable name is a
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<a href="../S/scratch.html"><i class="glossterm">scratch</i></a> file that may be deleted at any time.</p><p>Metasyntactic variables are so called because (1) they are variables
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in the metalanguage used to talk about programs etc; (2) they are variables
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whose values are often variables (as in usages like “<span class="quote">the value of
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f(foo,bar) is the sum of foo and bar</span>”). However, it has been
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plausibly suggested that the real reason for the term “<span class="quote">metasyntactic
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variable</span>” is that it sounds good. To some extent, the list of one's
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preferred metasyntactic variables is a cultural signature. They occur both
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in series (used for related groups of variables or objects) and as
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singletons. Here are a few common signatures:</p><div class="informaltable"><table border="1"><colgroup><col/><col/></colgroup><tbody><tr><td><a href="../F/foo.html"><i class="glossterm">foo</i></a>,
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<a href="../B/bar.html"><i class="glossterm">bar</i></a>,
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<a href="../B/baz.html"><i class="glossterm">baz</i></a>,
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<a href="../Q/quux.html"><i class="glossterm">quux</i></a>,
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quuux, quuuux...:
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</td><td>MIT/Stanford usage, now found everywhere (thanks largely to
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early versions of this lexicon!). At MIT (but not at Stanford),
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<a href="../B/baz.html"><i class="glossterm">baz</i></a> dropped out of use for a while in the
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1970s and '80s. A common recent mutation of this sequence inserts
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<a href="../Q/qux.html"><i class="glossterm">qux</i></a>before <a href="../Q/quux.html"><i class="glossterm">quux</i></a>.</td></tr><tr><td>bazola, ztesch:</td><td>Stanford (from mid-'70s on).</td></tr><tr><td><a href="../F/foo.html"><i class="glossterm">foo</i></a>,
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<a href="../B/bar.html"><i class="glossterm">bar</i></a>, thud, grunt:</td><td>This series was popular at CMU. Other CMU-associated variables
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include <a href="../G/gorp.html"><i class="glossterm">gorp</i></a>.</td></tr><tr><td><a href="../F/foo.html"><i class="glossterm">foo</i></a>, <a href="../B/bar.html"><i class="glossterm">bar</i></a>, bletch:
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</td><td>Waterloo University. We are informed that the CS club at
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Waterloo formerly had a sign on its door reading
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“<span class="quote">Ye Olde Foo Bar and Grill</span>”; this led to an attempt
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to establish “<span class="quote">grill</span>” as the third metasyntactic variable,
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but it never caught on.</td></tr><tr><td><a href="../F/foo.html"><i class="glossterm">foo</i></a>,
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<a href="../B/bar.html"><i class="glossterm">bar</i></a>, fum:</td><td>This series is reported to be common at XEROX PARC.</td></tr><tr><td><a href="../F/fred.html"><i class="glossterm">fred</i></a>, jim, sheila,
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<a href="../B/barney.html"><i class="glossterm">barney</i></a>:</td><td>See the entry for
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<a href="../F/fred.html"><i class="glossterm">fred</i></a>. These tend to be Britishisms.</td></tr><tr><td><a href="../F/flarp.html"><i class="glossterm">flarp</i></a>:</td><td>Popular at Rutgers University and among
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<a href="../G/GOSMACS.html"><i class="glossterm">GOSMACS</i></a> hackers.</td></tr><tr><td>zxc, spqr, wombat:</td><td>Cambridge University (England).</td></tr><tr><td>shme</td><td>Berkeley, GeoWorks, Ingres. Pronounced
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<span class="pronunciation">/shme/</span> with a short
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<span class="pronunciation">/e/</span>.</td></tr><tr><td>foo, bar, baz, bongo</td><td>Yale, late 1970s.</td></tr><tr><td>spam, eggs</td><td><a href="../P/Python.html"><i class="glossterm">Python</i></a> programmers.</td></tr><tr><td>snork</td><td>Brown University, early 1970s.</td></tr><tr><td><a href="../F/foo.html"><i class="glossterm">foo</i></a>, <a href="../B/bar.html"><i class="glossterm">bar</i></a>, zot
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</td><td>Helsinki University of Technology, Finland.</td></tr><tr><td>blarg, <a href="../W/wibble.html"><i class="glossterm">wibble</i></a></td><td>New Zealand.</td></tr><tr><td>toto, titi, tata, tutu</td><td>France.</td></tr><tr><td>pippo, pluto, paperino</td><td>Italy. Pippo <span class="pronunciation">/pee´po/</span>
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and Paperino
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<span class="pronunciation">/pa·per·ee'·no/</span>
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are the Italian names for Goofy and Donald Duck.</td></tr><tr><td>aap, noot, mies</td><td>The Netherlands. These are the first words a child used to
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learn to spell on a Dutch spelling board.</td></tr><tr><td>oogle, foogle, boogle; zork, gork, bork</td><td>These two series (which may be continued with other initial
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consonents) are reportedly common in England, and said to go back to
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Lewis Carroll.</td></tr></tbody></table></div><p> Of all these,
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only <span class="firstterm">foo</span> and <span class="firstterm">bar</span> are universal (and
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<a href="../B/baz.html"><i class="glossterm">baz</i></a> nearly so). The compounds
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<a href="../F/foobar.html"><i class="glossterm">foobar</i></a> and <span class="firstterm">foobaz</span> also enjoy very wide currency. Some
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jargon terms are also used as metasyntactic names;
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<a href="../B/barf.html"><i class="glossterm">barf</i></a> and <a href="mumble.html"><i class="glossterm">mumble</i></a>, for example.
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See also <a href="../C/Commonwealth-Hackish.html"><i class="glossterm">Commonwealth Hackish</i></a> for discussion of
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numerous metasyntactic variables found in Great Britain and the
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Commonwealth.</p></dd><div class="navfooter"><hr/><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="meta-bit.html">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="../M.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="MFTL.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">meta bit </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="../index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> MFTL</td></tr></table></div></body></html>
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