Metasyntactic Variable: Difference between revisions
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A '''Metasyntactic Variable''' -- also called a "Placeholder Name" -- is a word or phrase used in the place of another word or phrase in any of several contexts. By mathematical analogy, a metasyntactic variable is a word that is a variable for other words, just as in algebra letters are used as variables for numbers.
In computing and technology contexts, these words are commonly found in source code and are intended to be modified or substituted before real-world usage. The words '''foo''' and '''bar''' are good examples as they are used in over 330 [[w:Internet Engineering Task Force|Internet Engineering Task Force]] [[w:Request for Comments|Requests for Comments]], the documents which define foundational internet technologies like HTTP (websites), TCP/IP, and email protocols.
Outside of computing contexts, these are words that functional grammatically as nouns and that can refer to objects, places or people whose names do not exist, are temporarily forgotten, irrelevant, or unknown in the context in which they are being discussed.
Some fields have their own specific placeholder terminology. For example, "widget"<ref>Not to be confused with [[Widget Series|our usage of the term]]</ref> in economics, engineering and electronics, or "Blackacre" and "John Doe" or "Jane Doe" in law.
Compare with [[Bland-Name Product]], where the variable is based on a Real Life brand name
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