Quux

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What Does Quux Mean?

Quux is a meta-syntactic variable name invented only as a kind of nickname or placeholder. Like other variable names such as foo, quux may be used in computer programming as a variable name.

Techopedia Explains Quux

As a placeholder, quux is just an invented set of characters representing a variable. For example, instead of using a specific name for the variable based upon its properties and operations, many programmers might use “foo” for an initial variable, and then use “quux” for another variable. For example, instead of “a + b = 5” the code would read “foo + quux = 5.”

In addition, the particular placeholder name quux is traced back to someone named Guy Steele, and was used as his persona, a.k.a. “The great Quux” in a set of “Crunchly” cartoons that poked fun at the IT systems and practices of the 1970s.

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Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert
Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert

Margaret 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 IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.

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