Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!aplcen!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!apple!motcsd!xdos!doug
From: doug@xdos.UUCP (Doug Merritt)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Re: Huffman Encoding Scheme
Message-ID: <673@xdos.UUCP>
Date: 27 Feb 90 16:44:04 GMT
References: <2941@dciem.dciem.dnd.ca> <1990Feb26.112044.17219@santra.uucp>
Reply-To: doug@xdos.UUCP (Doug Merritt)
Organization: Hunter Systems, Mountain View CA (Silicon Valley)
Lines: 30

In article <1990Feb26.112044.17219@santra.uucp> justus@niksula.hut.fi (Juhana R{s{nen) writes:
>In article <2941@dciem.dciem.dnd.ca> ckc@dretor (Raymond Cheang) writes:
>>
>>Hi! Can someone give me some references on huffman encoding scheme.
>
>(1) Abelson & Sussman: Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs,
>
>    Contains some basic theory of Huffman encoding and an implementation in
>    scheme (a dialect of lisp :-)); pp. 118-125. But this is a mere example
>
>(2) Richard Hamming: Coding and information theory (1980)

This is likely to be *quite* mathematical in nature, and hence likely to
be close to useless for somebody who just wants to get the job done. Not
intended as a flame to Juhana, it's a good reference; just a warning to
Raymond.

More directly useful might be something like the superb book "Algorithms",
by Robert Sedgewick (*everyone* should have this book; it's far more
approachable than Knuth. Well, ok, everybody should have Knuth, too).

Anyway, it has a short chapter on "file compression", that is 80%
a discussion of Huffman encoding, with short example code in Pascal.

On a related subject, note that the usually more efficient Lempel Zev
encoding is available in the P.D. "compress" program.
	Doug
-- 
Doug Merritt		{pyramid,apple}!xdos!doug
Member, Crusaders for a Better Tomorrow		Professional Wildeyed Visionary