38.2 Prefix-free Codes
Consider the representation of English text in Java. We represent text as a sequence of characters, each taking 8 bits of memory.
One easy way to compress, then, is to simply use less than 8 bits per character. To do this, we have to decide which codewords (bit sequences) go with each symbol (character).
Mapping Alphanumeric Symbols
Morse Code
As an introductory example, consider the Morse code alphabet. Looking at the alphabet below, what does the sequence – – • – – • represent? It’s ambiguous! The same sequence of symbols can represent either MEME, or GG, depending on what you choose – – • to represent
In real usage, operators must pause between codewords to indicate a break. The pause acts as an implicit third symbol, but we can't encode this real-time information into our code.
Prefix-free Codes
An alternate strategy to avoid the need for real-time is to use prefix-free codes. In a prefix-free code, no codeword is a prefix of any other. In the Morse Code example, there would be no confusion whether the – – in the pattern – – • – – • is supposed to represent M, or the start of G.
Let's represent Morse code as a tree of codewords leading to symbols. As we can see from the tree, several symbols have representations that are prefixes of other symbols.
As an example of an (arbitrary) prefix-free code, consider the following encoding:
The following code is also prefix-free:
Note that some codes are more efficient for certain strings than others: in the first representation, I ATE uses less bits than the second code. However, this is highly dependent on what string we're trying to encode.
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