Generalized Kraft Inequality and Arithmetic Coding

Algorithms for encoding and decoding finite strings over a finite alphabet are described. The coding operations are arithmetic involving rational numbers l <inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">i</inf> as parameters such that ∑ <inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">i</inf> 2 −l i≤2 −ε . This coding technique requires no blocking, and the per-symbol length of the encoded string approaches the associated entropy within ε. The coding speed is comparable to that of conventional coding methods.