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Run Length Compression

Run length coding is fairly simple to implement, and with all lossless schemes, its performance depends heavily on the input data statistics. Computer generated binary files are often very amenable to this type of compression, for example with a codeword size of 1 bit or a byte or a word often leading to elimination of many all 1s or all 0s successive fields. The nice feature of this scheme is that it incurs very little delay at sender or receiver. Note that this and other schemes do incur a variable output bit/symbol rate.



Jon CROWCROFT
1998-12-03