Unary coding: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 01:05, 16 June 2007

Revision as of 20:55, 25 June 2007

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'''Unary coding''' is an [[entropy encoding]] that represents a [[natural number]], ''n'', with ''n'' − 1 ones followed by a zero. For example 5 is represented as 11110. Some representations use ''n'' zeros followed by a one. The ones and zeros are interchangeable without loss of generality.

<table border="1" cellpadding="2">

<tr><th>n<th>coding

<tr><td>1<td>1

<tr><td>2<td>01

<tr><td>3<td>001

<tr><td>4<td>0001

<tr><td>5<td>00001

<tr><td>6<td>000001

<tr><td>7<td>0000001

<tr><td>8<td>00000001

<tr><td>9<td>000000001

<tr><td>10<td>0000000001

</table>

Unary coding is an optimally efficient encoding for the following discrete [[probability distribution]]