(algorithm)
Definition: A minimal variable-length message coding based on the frequency of each character. The message is represented by a fraction which is the repeated offset-plus-product reduction of the range (offset) and probability (product) of each character.
See also Huffman coding, Shannon-Fano coding.
Note: Shannon-Fano is a minimal prefix code. Huffman is optimal for character coding (one character-one code word) and simple to program. Arithmetic coding is a little better still, since it can allocate fractional bits, but is more complicated and has patents.
Patents cover some use of arithmetic coding.
Author: PEB
If you have suggestions, corrections, or comments, please get in touch with Paul E. Black.
Entry modified Tue Jan 4 10:27:30 2005.
HTML page formatted Wed Oct 26 09:47:11 2005.
Cite this as:
Paul E. Black, "arithmetic coding", from
Dictionary of Algorithms and Data
Structures, Paul E. Black, ed.,
NIST.
http://www.nist.gov/dads/HTML/arithmeticCoding.html
