Enhanced Byte Codes with Restricted Prefix Properties

Byte codes have a number of properties that make them attractive for practical compression systems: they are relatively easy to construct; they decode quickly; and they can be searched using standard byte-aligned string matching techniques. In this paper we describe a new type of byte code in which the first byte of each codeword completely specifies the number of bytes that comprise the suffix of the codeword. Our mechanism gives more flexible coding than previous constrained byte codes, and hence better compression. The structure of the code also suggests a heuristic approximation that allows savings to be made in the prelude that describes the code. We present experimental results that compare our new method with previous approaches to byte coding, in terms of both compression effectiveness and decoding throughput speeds.