What is 'foo' ?

[Anon]

Hi
I've been using PHP fora while now and I'm fed up seeing things like,

if ($foo) {
   $bar='lame example';
}

am I the only person that doesn't know what the hell this means?

Personally when I'm documenting my work I tend to use 'poo' instead. It's an english thing.

Thanks all

Nick

[[deleted]]

Foo is the little brother of Bar, and together they are foobar, not to be mistaken for fubar, which is F'ed Up Beyond All Recognition.

I'm not quite sure where it started, by in the PERL world Foo and Bar are the customary names for vars and stuff.

PS So your documents contain a lot of poo? :-)

[Anon]

They fairly reek!

[twilson]

$foo, $bar = FUBAR... F$!#ed Up Beyond All Recognition

Peace,
Tom

[gerardg]

Why isn't it $fu $bar? ;-)

[[deleted]]

because 'fu' means 'f*ck you'. and it's not polite to tell your hardworking fellow coders to F-off allthe time :-)

Plus, Fu-Bar sounds like you are coding for Ming Ting Long, the chinese laundry-man. ;-)

It also sounds like an ancient Klingon ritual to initiate the Nu-Bees into the world of Peh-Hah-Peh.

Which reminds me of a quote:
"Lego comes from the klingon 'Leh-go' which means buildingblocks of war"

[gerardg]

Well I don't buy that. Anyhow, it's OK to tell users to rtfm (rt fooking m)?

[[deleted]]

If the question is stupid enough and you are brave enough, then yes.

[gerardg]

So where's the rtfm for foobar? ;-)

[[deleted]]

You can rtfm, but it's fubarred. :-)

[Anon]

FOO comes from a very old (1930s) comic strip called "Smokey Stover". The author got it from the Chinese word 'fu', meaning prosperity. FOO reappeared in a few unknown comics books and magazines in the 1950s.

A few other spottings occur in a military context...
"FOO was here", used by the British.
"FOO Fighters", used by the USMarines.

As far as the modern definition for "Foo" in the context of programming, I see it a lot using the Java language. It is used to refer to something that can be anything because it doesn't matter what the thing really is. It's like saying "whatchamacallit", or as they say in Hawaii, "da kine".

Synonymns of "Foo" include:
thing
thang
x
something-something
do-hicky
damnit

For more information search,
"what is foo" on a search engine, foo!