Message-ID: <004201c07a2e$5fd12440$964d57cb@spunky>
From: "JB" <jamesb AT northnet DOT com DOT au>
To: <eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il>
Cc: <djgpp AT delorie DOT com>
References: <Pine DOT SUN DOT 3 DOT 91 DOT 1010109102938 DOT 19017O-100000 AT is>
Subject: Re: what's foo?
Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2001 22:21:54 +1100
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Reply-To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com

That's interesting. I was always under the impression it meant "whatever" as
in needing a unique type of name just for the sake of demonstrating
something, just like a tutor might demonstrate writing a function in C as
something like this:

ret_type func_name( [param_list] )
{
    stmts;
}

but instead of saying func_name saying foo(), since the Yanks called the
UFOs they encountered in flight "foo fighters," saying "foo" because they
really didn't know what to call them, it was just a placeholder for a name.

Or did "foo" in "foo fighters" come from fubar? What is fubar anyway?

James


----- Original Message -----
From: "Eli Zaretskii" <eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il>
To: "bedbed" <baby AT car DOT com>
Cc: <djgpp AT delorie DOT com>
Sent: Tuesday, January 09, 2001 7:30 PM
Subject: Re: what's foo?


>
> On Tue, 9 Jan 2001, bedbed wrote:
>
> > I see the phase 'foo' so often in C related topics. What does it mean
> > or originate from?
>
> It comes from "fubar", which see.  (That's why you will also see `foo'
> and `bar' mentioned in the same text.)
>