Tinker7 piles left to merge.7 piles
Chapter 3 of 7
Short codes for common letters
Every letter still costs eight bits, the common ones as much as the rare. What if common letters got shorter codes?
This chapter: How does Huffman’s rule give the commonest letters the shortest codes?
About this chapter
You will learn
- Merge the two lightest piles, again and again
- Each merge adds one bit to the letters inside
- Ties can go either way and still be best
Words you’ll meet
- Huffman code
- Short codes for common symbols and long ones for rare, built by merging the two lightest piles.
- Code tree
- The tree the merges build: the path from the top down to a letter spells its code.
Step 1 of 4
“label roll” lies on the table, a pile per letter. A gives common letters short codes.
Predict which letter gets the shortest code.