Set of Symbols

A set of symbols is the reservoir of symbols for the contents. This set contains the total amount of different symbols that may be used.

If a symbol will be represented by a byte, the entire set contains 256 different symbols. This corresponds to the number of symbols addressable by a byte (0 to 255). A common character set according to ASCII or ANSI consists of 256 different symbols or characters respectively.

Examples for common sets of symbols:

small letters

    {a, b, c, d, e, f, g, ... z}

deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA)

    {A,      C,       G,      T}
     Adenin, Cytosin, Guanin, Thymin

boolean expressions

    {0,     1}
    {false, true}

The number of symbols used from the set and the probability of their usage will be decisive for the success of a compression procedure.

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