Written by the Fiveable Content Team • Last updated August 2025
Verified for the 2026 exam
Verified for the 2026 exam•Written by the Fiveable Content Team • Last updated August 2025
Definition
Compressing data refers to reducing its size by encoding it in a more efficient way. It eliminates redundant or unnecessary information, resulting in smaller file sizes that take up less storage space and can be transmitted more quickly.
Lossless Compression: Lossless compression is a method of compressing data where the original content can be perfectly reconstructed from the compressed version without any loss of information.
Lossy Compression: Lossy compression is a method of compressing data where some information is permanently discarded during the compression process, resulting in a smaller file size but with some loss of quality.
Huffman Coding: Huffman coding is an algorithm used for data compression that assigns shorter codes to frequently occurring symbols or characters, reducing the overall size of the encoded data.