User:Kf4yfd/msv

In

• 'Meta' means providing information about, or transcending.
• 'Syntax' means the grammatical arrangement of words or the grammatical rules of a programming language.
• '
  Variable
  ' means something that can assume a value, or something likely to vary.

So we have a word that

transcends grammar and can assume a value

or one that

is more comprehensive than grammatical arrangement and is likely to vary.

Words commonly used as metasyntactic variables

A "standard list of metasyntactic variables used in syntax examples" often used in the United States is: foo, bar, baz, qux, quux, corge, grault, garply,

Programming language examples

The

// The function named foo
int foo(void)
{
   // Declare the variable bar and set the value to 1
   int bar = 1;

   return bar;
}

The

# Define a function named spam
def spam():

    # define the variable ham
    ham = "Hello World!"

    #define the variable eggs
    eggs = 1

    return

# Declare the variable foo and set equal to 1
foo = 1

# Declare the variable bar and set equal to 2
bar = 2

# Declare the method (function) named baz, which prints the text 'Hello world'
def baz
   puts 'Hello world'
end

• Alice and Bob
• John Doe
• Fnord
• Free variables and bound variables
• gadget
• Hello World
• Lorem Ipsum
• Placeholder name
• Widget

References

External links

• Definition of metasyntactic variable, with examples.
• Examples of metasyntactic variables used in Commonwealth Hackish, such as wombat.
• Variable "foo" and Other Programming Oddities