RE: [PHP-WIN] Who is foo & what is bar?

> Just my opinion, but I think it comes from the acronym FUBAR - f@cked up > beyond all recognition... > > Mikey > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Uttam [mailto:uttam@lml.co.in] > > Sent: 21 January 2003 13:29 > > To: php-windows-digest-help@lists.php.net; php-windows@lists.php.net > > Subject: [PHP-WIN] Who is foo & what is bar? > > > > > > In many code examples in PHP documention (& others also), I have seen > > authors referring to variables 'foo' & 'bar', but I have yet not > > discovered > > the origin of these names. I am sure there must be dozens of others who > > have the curiosity to find how the use of these names started. > > > > Can anyone quench the curiosities please? > > > > regards, > > QUOTE: "The etymology of foobar is possibly (probably) not derived from 'fubar'. It may even be the other direction. Certainly in this (from 'hacker' culture) context its use is not at all related to fubar." REF: http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?FooBar "In CS/hacker circles, foobar (and others) are known as MetasyntacticVariables. The use of such for examples and communication has be obvious to many people, over time convergence was somewhat achieved to the first few being: foo, bar, baz, foobar/quux, quuux,..." REF: http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?FooBar ETYMOLOGY: 1. interj. Term of disgust. 2. [very common] Used very generally as a sample name for absolutely anything, esp. programs and files (esp. scratch files). 3. First on the standard list of metasyntactic variables used in syntax examples. See also bar, baz, qux, quux, corge, grault, garply, waldo, fred, plugh, xyzzy, thud. When foo' is used in connection with bar' it has generally traced to the WWII-era Army slang acronym FUBAR (Fucked Up Beyond All Repair' or Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition'), later modified to foobar. Early versions of the Jargon File interpreted this change as a post-war bowdlerization, but it it now seems more likely that FUBAR was itself a derivative of foo' perhaps influenced by German furchtbar' (terrible) - `foobar' may actually have been the original form. For, it seems, the word `foo' itself had an immediate prewar history in comic strips and cartoons. The earliest documented uses were in the "Smokey Stover" comic strip published from about 1930 to about 1952. Bill Holman, the author of the strip, filled it with odd jokes and personal contrivances, including other nonsense phrases such as "Notary Sojac" and "1506 nix nix". The word "foo" frequently appeared on license plates of cars, in nonsense sayings in the background of some frames (such as "He who foos last foos best" or "Many smoke but foo men chew"), and Holman had Smokey say "Where there's foo, there's fire". According to the Warner Brothers Cartoon Companion Holman claimed to have found the word "foo" on the bottom of a Chinese figurine. Thiss plausible; Chinese statuettes often have apotropaic inscriptions, and this one was almost certainly the Mandarin Chinese word fu' (sometimes transliterated foo'), which can mean "happiness" or "prosperity" when spoken with the rising tone (the lion-dog guardians flanking the steps of many Chinese restaurants are properly called "fu dogs"). English speakers' reception of Holman's `foo' nonsense word was undoubtedly influenced by Yiddish feh' and English fooey' and `fool'. THE REST CAN BE READ AT: http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/jargon/html/entry/foo.html