ABSTRACT
Data compression is a very important and practical information technology. In the information age, data compression technology becomes more and more important because of the rapid growth of the quantity of information. There are many coding methods of data compression, substantially, can be divided into lossless and lossy compression coding. Huffman coding is the first practical lossy compression coding technology. After many years of continuous improvement, it has formed a system of the theory and method. Currently there are two major types of Huffman coding, static Huffman coding and dynamic Huffman coding. Huffman coding has extensive applications, which is no longer the all of the compression algorithm, but to be the final coding method.
Firstly, this paper introduces the history and basic principles and methods of data compression, then introduces the theory and algorithm of huffman coding and its derivatives algorithms, and compares them simply. Finally, it’s realized a software system based on a better Huffman algorithm.
KEY WORDS: data compression, Huffman coding, dynamic Huffman coding