What Is Foobar?

Foobar is a term used in IT as a placeholder to refer to generic examples, temporary files, or programs to be deleted. The technical time for a word like foobar is a metasyntactic variable. These terms are used to name variables, programs or other parts of code. The term foobar came into being during the 1970s when programmers first used it to describe things they didn't want to discuss. They would use this word to refer to something irrelevant then and then go back later and replace it with something else. The term has since become associated with anything temporary or irrelevant. For example, if you were talking about someone using their computer rather than someone else's workstation, you might say, "They're using their foobar". Foobar is a placeholder name that programmers and developers often use when naming variables or other items. Foobar is also sometimes used as a placeholder word for the first syllable of the word "foobar," where "bar" is used as the second placeholder for an arbitrary term. So, for example, a temporary file may be named foobar.txt, foobar.jpg, etc. Many people need clarification about what foobar means because it has a similar-sounding word in English: fubar. Fubar comes from military jargon and refers to something messed up or broken beyond repair (for example, "the engine on my jeep is fubar"). You don't hear this word used in IT, which makes it easy to confuse foobar with fubar. There are many ways to remember the correct spelling of the term foobar. Some might think of "foo bar," which rhymes with "fou bar". Others might remember the term as "foo bar," which rhymes with "stoo bar." Another option is to think of a foo and a bar side by side. The "foo" in "foobar" rhymes with "foo," and the "bar" in "foobar" rhymes with "bar."