Encyclopedia > Truncated binary encoding

  Article Content

Truncated binary encoding

Truncated binary encoding is an entropy encoding typically used for uniform probability distributions with a finite alphabet. It is parameterized by a maximum number n. It is slightly more general than binary encoding which is only optimal where n is a power of two.

For example, if n is 4, binary encoding allocates these codewords:

Number Encoding
0000
1001
2010
3011
4100
UNUSED101
UNUSED110
UNUSED111

Instead, truncated binary allocates:

Number Encoding
000
101
210
3110
4111

You can think of this as allocating an UNUSED to the first few symbols (until you run out of UNUSEDs), to make the first few symbols' codewords shorter.



All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

 
  Search Encyclopedia

Search over one million articles, find something about almost anything!
 
 
  
  Featured Article
Wheatley Heights, New York

... 45 to 64, and 7.9% who are 65 years of age or older. The median age is 35 years. For every 100 females there are 95.1 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, ...

 
 
 
This page was created in 34 ms