出典:Wiktionary
metasyntactic variable (複数形 metasyntactic variables)
出典:Wikipedia
出典:『Wikipedia』 (2011/07/04 18:13 UTC 版)
In computer science, programmers use metasyntactic variables to describe a placeholder name or an alias term commonly used to denote the subject matter under discussion or an arbitrary member of a class of things under discussion. The use of a metasyntactic variable is helpful in freeing a programmer from creating a logically named variable, which is often useful when creating or teaching examples of an algorithm. The word foo is the principal example.