Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!uunet!ns-mx!pyrite.cs.uiowa.edu From: jones@pyrite.cs.uiowa.edu (Douglas W. Jones,201H MLH,3193350740,3193382879) Newsgroups: comp.compression Subject: Re: What is a trie ?? (was Re: fast string compr.?) Message-ID: <6228@ns-mx.uiowa.edu> Date: 28 May 91 16:30:55 GMT References: Sender: news@ns-mx.uiowa.edu Distribution: comp Lines: 17 From article , by d88-jwa@byse.nada.kth.se (Jon W{tte): > > What is a trie? A trie is any tree where branches are labeled with the letters of some alphabet and where the path label, treated as a string of these letters, is used to encode or decode the use of that path. Thus, the tree used in a Huffman code is a trie, and the hash table used by the LZW compression algorithm is also a funny but very useful representation of a trie. I've never seen any reason to use the word -- it's a cute pun on the word tree, but the problem is, too many people don't understand what you mean when you say it. Rather than take the time to tell them what I meant, I prefer to avoid the problem by avoiding the word. Doug Jones jones@cs.uiowa.edu