Huffman Coding

Huffman Coding is a lossless data compression algorithm that reduces the size of data by assigning shorter binary codes to more frequent symbols. It builds an optimal prefix tree, ensuring efficient encoding and decoding. Commonly used in file compression formats like ZIP and JPEG, Huffman Coding minimizes storage space without losing information.

How it Works

The algorithm starts by treating every symbol as an independent node, each weighted by its frequency. It repeatedly merges the two minimum nodes into a new parent node whose weight is their sum. This merging continues until there is only a single tree. Traversing from the root to a leaf produces a binary code, where each left or right move adds a bit.