The term magic number also refers to the bad programming practice of using numbers directly in source code without explanation. In most cases this makes programs harder to read, understand, and maintain. Although most guides make an exception for the numbers zero and one, it is a good idea to define all other numbers in code as named constants.

For example, to shuffle the values in an array randomly, this pseudocode will do the job:

for i from 1 to 52
j := i + randomInt(53 - i) - 1
a.swapEntries(i, j)

where a is an array object, the function randomInt(x) chooses a random integer between 1 to x, inclusive, and swapEntries(i, j) swaps the ith and jth entries in the array. In this example, 52 is a magic number. It is considered better programming style to write:

constant int deckSize := 52
for i from 1 to deckSize
j := i + randomInt(deckSize + 1 - i) - 1
a.swapEntries(i, j)

Source: Wikipedia