A problem that has not been mentioned with using magic numbers...
If you have very many of them, the odds are reasonably good that you have two different purposes that you're using magic numbers for, where the values happen to be the same.
And then, sure enough, you need to change the value... for only one purpose.
A magic number can also be a number with special, hardcoded semantics. For example, I once saw a system where record IDs > 0 were treated normally, 0 itself was "new record", -1 was "this is the root" and -99 was "this was created in the root". 0 and -99 would cause the WebService to supply a new ID.
What's bad about this is that you're reusing a space (that of signed integers for record IDs) for special abilities. Maybe you'll never want to create a record with ID 0, or with a negative ID, but even if not, every person who looks either at the code or at the database might stumble on this and be confused at first. It goes without saying those special values weren't well-documented.
What about initializing a variable at the top of the class with a default value? For example:
public class SomeClass {
private int maxRows = 15000;
...
// Inside another method
for (int i = 0; i < maxRows; i++) {
// Do something
}
public void setMaxRows(int maxRows) {
this.maxRows = maxRows;
}
public int getMaxRows() {
return this.maxRows;
}
In this case, 15000 is a magic number (according to CheckStyles). To me, setting a default value is okay. I don't want to have to do:
private static final int DEFAULT_MAX_ROWS = 15000;
private int maxRows = DEFAULT_MAX_ROWS;
Does that make it more difficult to read? I never considered this until I installed CheckStyles.
I assume this is a response to my answer to your earlier question. In programming, a magic number is an embedded numerical constant that appears without explanation. If it appears in two distinct locations, it can lead to circumstances where one instance is changed and not another. For both these reasons, it's important to isolate and define the numerical constants outside the places where they're used.
@eed3si9n: I'd even suggest that '1' is a magic number. :-)
A principle that's related to magic numbers is that every fact your code deals with should be declared exactly once. If you use magic numbers in your code (such as the password length example that @marcio gave, you can easily end up duplicating that fact, and when your understand of that fact changes you've got a maintenance problem.
A magic number is a sequence of characters at the start of a file format, or protocol exchange. This number serves as a sanity check.
Example: Open up any GIF file, you will see at the very start: GIF89. "GIF89" being the magic number.
Other programs can read the first few characters of a file and properly identify GIFs.
The danger is that random binary data can contain these same characters. But it is very unlikely.
As for protocol exchange, you can use it to quickly identify that the current 'message' that is being passed to you is corrupted or not valid.
Magic numbers are still useful.
A problem that has not been mentioned with using magic numbers...
If you have very many of them, the odds are reasonably good that you have two different purposes that you're using magic numbers for, where the values happen to be the same.
And then, sure enough, you need to change the value... for only one purpose.
A magic number can also be a number with special, hardcoded semantics. For example, I once saw a system where record IDs > 0 were treated normally, 0 itself was "new record", -1 was "this is the root" and -99 was "this was created in the root". 0 and -99 would cause the WebService to supply a new ID.
What's bad about this is that you're reusing a space (that of signed integers for record IDs) for special abilities. Maybe you'll never want to create a record with ID 0, or with a negative ID, but even if not, every person who looks either at the code or at the database might stumble on this and be confused at first. It goes without saying those special values weren't well-documented.
Arguably, 22, 7, -12 and 620 count as magic numbers, too. ;-)
What about initializing a variable at the top of the class with a default value? For example:
In this case, 15000 is a magic number (according to CheckStyles). To me, setting a default value is okay. I don't want to have to do:
Does that make it more difficult to read? I never considered this until I installed CheckStyles.
I assume this is a response to my answer to your earlier question. In programming, a magic number is an embedded numerical constant that appears without explanation. If it appears in two distinct locations, it can lead to circumstances where one instance is changed and not another. For both these reasons, it's important to isolate and define the numerical constants outside the places where they're used.
@eed3si9n: I'd even suggest that '1' is a magic number. :-)
A principle that's related to magic numbers is that every fact your code deals with should be declared exactly once. If you use magic numbers in your code (such as the password length example that @marcio gave, you can easily end up duplicating that fact, and when your understand of that fact changes you've got a maintenance problem.