The origin of foo

[viliml]

I've seen and heard a LOT of examples that use "foo" as a name of a class, a function, variable, basicly anything that is used just for an example. My question is: Why foo? Where does the word foo come from?

[Stewbond]

That's a good question.

It seems like when someone comes across an example, it spreads. Sort of like "Hello World". Every language has a "hello world" example, but why isn't it "Test Output" or "Sample"? I think it just stuck.

As for Foo, I usually see it paired up with Bar which sounds like the FUBAR acronym (F***'d up beyond all recognition). I'm guessing someone used this as an example and it stuck.

[Duthomhas]

http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/F/foo.html

[codekiddy]

+1 Duoas for the link.
The acronim rocks xD.

[shacktar]

FUBAR stuck, though I would like to see more SNAFU, SUSFU, and TARFU used in examples.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_slang_terms