Compressing Data

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.

Related terms

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.