Uniquely Decodable

Codes (UDC)
Data Compression and Data Retrieval
What is coding?
• Coding is the process of assigning binary sequences to an alphabet.
Messages Codewords
a1 0000
a2 0001
a3 0010
a4 0011

• Code: The set of all codewords is called a code.

• Rate: The average number of bits per symbol is called the rate.
Cont…
• Two types of coding:
1) Fixed length coding
2) Instantaneous coding

• For fixed length coding:

Bits per symbol B = log2N, where N is number of symbols
Uniquely Decodable Codes (UDC)
• Uniquely Decodable code is nothing but that is there should be only
one way of interpreting the sequences with their associated
codewords.
• Prefix: If the beginning subsequence of codeword b is equal to
codeword a, then a is a prefix.
• Dangling Suffix: If a is a prefix of b, then the subsequence of b
excluding the prefix a is called a dangling suffix.
Cont…
a b
K bits N bits
• a and b are two codewords and K < N
• If first K bits of b are identical to a, then a is a prefix of b.
• Remaining (N-K) bits of b is called dangling suffix.

• Example: a=010 and b=01011

a is prefix of b and dangling suffix is 11.
Procedure
• Examine if any codeword is a prefix of another codword, if so, add the
dangling suffix to the code as a codeword. Repeat the procedure until:
(1) We get a dangling suffix that is a codeword.
(2) There are no more unique dangling suffixes.
• If we get (1), the code is not uniquely decodable.
Cont…
• Example: {0, 10, 01}
• See 0 and 10. 0 is prefix of 01 so we get dangling suffix as 1.
• Add this 1 to the code and the revised code is {0, 10, 01, 1}.
• Now check for 0 and 01. Dangling suffix is 1, which is already added to
the code.
• Now check for 1 and 10. 0 is dangling suffix and 0 is already there in
the original code.
• So this code is not uniquely decodable.
Cont…
• Example: {0, 01, 11}
• Check for 0 and 01. Dangling suffix is 1.
• This 1 is added to the code and revised code is {0, 01, 11, 1}.
• Now check for 0 and 01. Dangling suffix is 1 but it is already added.
• Now check for 1 and 11. Dangling suffix is 1 but it is already added.
• Now there are no more dangling suffixes in this code. So this code is
uniquely decodable.
Thank
You