prefix coding
noun1
Computing, Computing theory, Engineering, Mathematics, Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Sciences A coding system that uses (typically variable-length) codes that are distinguished by their "prefix property", which requires that there is no code word in the system that is a prefix (initial segment) of any other code word in the system.
- A prefix coding can use a code with code words {9, 55}, as it has the prefix property. However, a code consisting of {9, 5, 59, 55} is not allowed, as "5" is a prefix of "59" and also of "55".
- Hyponyms
- Elias delta coding, Elias gamma coding, Elias omega coding, Fibonacci coding, Golomb Rice code, Huffman coding, Levenshtein coding, Shannon–Fano coding, Straddling checkerboard, unary coding