Binary Codes

Internal

• Huffman Codes

Overview

A binary code is a function that maps each character of an alphabet Σ to a binary string.

Fixed Length Code

A fixed length binary code is a binary code that maps each character of the alphabet Σ to a fixed length code. Arbitrary characters have the same length representation in the binary code. ASCII is an example of a fixed length binary code. However, in case when some characters are more likely to appear than others, a schema that allocates shorter codes to characters that are likely to appear more frequently tends to encode information using fewer bits. This encoding schemas are called variable length codes.