Characteristics of Code Trees

Any node in a binary code tree has only one predecessor and two successors. If symbols are assigned only to leaf nodes and interior nodes only construct the tree, it is always sure that no code word could be the prefix of another code word. Such a tree matches the prefix property.

Code trees can be constructed in a way that the probability for the occurrence of the symbols will be represented by the tree structure. A wide-spread procedure is the coding scheme developed by David Huffman.

Binary trees only allow a graduation of 1 bit. More precise solutions will be offered by the arithmetic code.

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