Exclude entry from glossary?

Question

I'm using the glossaries package in LaTeX. I've got \gls{foo} in my document, but I don't want the entry for "foo" to appear in the glossary. How can I keep a working (i.e. expanding) \gls{foo} in the body of my document, but exclude the entry for "foo" from the glossary?

EDIT: I want to use \gls{foo} to indicate "as used here, 'foo' has its specific meaning within this document." In a few cases, though, I've ended up with a "foo" whose definition is too obvious--or difficult--to articulate in the glossary.

So I want \gls{foo} to be expanded as usual, but I don't want the "foo" entry to appear in the glossary.

I hope this adds a little more information about what I'm trying to accomplish. It may be an abuse of glossaries, but I find it helpful to make sure I'm always using the same words and the right words while writing technical documents.

Answer 1

If you are using the glossaries package you can create an "ignored" glossary like

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{glossaries}
\newglossary[glignoredl]{ignored}{glignored}{glignoredin}{Ignored Glossary}
\makeglossaries

\newglossaryentry{foofoo}{name={FOOFOO},description={foofoo stuff}}
\newglossaryentry{foo}{name={FOO},type={ignored},description={no good description}}
\newglossaryentry{bar}{name={BAR},description={bar of stuff}}

\begin{document}

Here is a \gls{foo} that is also a \gls{bar}, but of course it's also a \gls{foofoo}.
Why not consider buying a \gls{foo}?

\printglossary
% \printglossary[type={ignored}]

\end{document}

Answer 2

I have no idea why you'd want to do this, but the following should work:

\let\oldgls\gls% store the original meaning of \gls in a new command named \oldgls
\let\gls\relax$ make \gls do nothing
Some text with \gls{foo} no links to the glossary, 
and no ``foo'' entry in the glossary.
\let\gls\oldgls% restore the original meaning of \gls
Some more text with \gls{bar} that links to the glossary,
and with a ``bar'' entry in the glossary.

Answer 3

This can be accomplished by adding the terms to a special common dictionary. It's actually a built-in feature of the glossaries package and it's even exemplified by the package author. From said example:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{glossaries}
\newignoredglossary{common}
\makeglossaries

\newglossaryentry{sample}{name={sample},description={an example}}
\newglossaryentry{commonex}{type=common,name={common term}}

\begin{document}
\gls{sample}. \gls{commonex}.
\printglossaries
\end{document}

Note the use of the \newignoredglossary command.