Baz

What Does Baz Mean?

In computer programming, baz is one of several common placeholder names for variables. Baz comes to the IT world along with the more common placeholders foo and bar. These names are simple ways to refer to universal ideas about the use of variables in programming.

Advertisements

Techopedia Explains Baz

The use of foo as a nonsense word dates back to the 1930s, with the use of foo in programming developing in the early days of computing. Eventually, the word bar was added as a suffix to form the word foobar or FUBAR which became a commonly used military slang. In programming, engineers or others will use the word foo for an initial variable, and will often use the word bar for a second variable. Within this construct, baz is designated as an alternate for bar, or as a name for a third variable.

For instance, when a programmer writes a simple program, he or she may need an initial variable to describe the program’s initial state, and might name that variable foo. When he or she needs a second variable, for example, to mirror or contrast with the state of the initial variable, or to store a user input, he or she might name that variable bar and use the placeholder name baz for a third
variable as needed, or, might name the second variable baz instead of bar for capricious preference.

Advertisements

Related Terms

Latest Buzzwords and Jargon Terms

Related Reading

Margaret Rouse

Margaret Rouse is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical, business audience. Over the past twenty years her explanations have appeared on TechTarget websites and she's been cited as an authority in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine and Discovery Magazine.Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages. If you have a suggestion for a new definition or how to improve a technical explanation, please email Margaret or contact her…