Metasyntactic variables. We all use 'em. We all love 'em. What would our examples be, without the ubiquitous foo, bar, and even baz? Could we possibly go on coding sanely if we couldn't throw our inside jokes into code that our suit-y bosses will never see?

This, my bretheren and sisteren, is my Tribute to the Metasyntactic Variable. D/L the code, save it to a file (preferably foo.pl), run it, and it randomly spits out a little metasyntactic treat!

Enjoy,
higle

Update: "prettied" up the FOO
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;

for($[..(eval($[-$[**$[+1))){$\=$/;my$bar;
while(<DATA>){chomp;s;[\s]+;;g;$bar.=$_;}
my@baz=split(/\\\|/,$bar);my@foo=map{chr 
if defined $_}(split(/\\/,$baz[rand@baz]));
my$foo;foreach(@foo){$foo.=$_;}
$_=$foo;print;}__DATA__
102\111\111\|98\97\114\          |98\97\12            2\|98\97\
114\102\|109\117\109\98\      108\101\|113\117     \120\|113\117\11
7\120\|113\117\117\117\120\|98\97\12    2\111\1    08\97\    |122\11
6\101\115\99\104\|116\104\117\100\|1    03\114\    117\11     0\116\
|98\108\101\116\99\104\|102\117\109\    |106\10    5\109\    |115\10
4\101\105\108\97\|98\97\114\110\101\    121\|10    2\114\    101\100
\|99\111\114\103\101\|103\114\97\117    \108\11    6\|102    \108\97
\114\112\|102\108\97\114\98\|122\120    \99\|11    5\112\    113\114
\|119\111\109\98\97\116\      |115\1    04\109\    101\|9    8\111\1
10\103\111\|115\112\97\       109\|1    01\103\    103\11    5\|115\
110\111\114\107\|122\11       1\116\    |98\108    \97\11    4\103\|
119\105\98\98\108\101\|       119\11    1\111\1    16\|11    6\111\1
16\111\|116\105\116\105       \|116\    97\116\    97\|11    6\117\1
16\117\|112\105\112\112       \111\|    112\108    \117\1    16\111\
|112\97\112\101\114\105       \110\1    11\|97\    97\112    \|110\1
11\111\116\|109\105\101       \115\|    111\111    \103\1    08\101\
|102\111\111\103\108\10       1\|98\    111\111    \103\1    08\101\
|122\111\114\107\|98\11       1\114\107\|103\      111\114\107\|10
2\111\111\98\97\114\|10          2\111\111            \98\97\122

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In reply to Tribute to Metasyntactic Variables by higle

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