The Data Compression Book (Paperback)

~ (Author), Jean-Loup Gailly (Author) "The primary purpose of this book is to explain various data-compression techniques using the C programming language..." (more)
Key Phrases: unsigned int code, unsigned long crc, zero weight node, Symbol Count Link, Stac Electronics, Terry Welch (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Topics in this guide to data compression techniques include the Shannon-Fano and Huffman coding techniques, Lossy compression, the JPEG compression algorithm, and fractal compression. Readers also study adaptive Huffman coding, arithmetic coding, dictionary compression methods, and learn to write C programs for nearly any environment. The disk illustrates each learned technique and demonstrates how data compression works.

About the Author

Jean-Loup Gailly, a software consultant with more than 15 years of programming experience, wrote the compression code of the freeware zip archiver and is the author of the gzip data-compression program.;

C++ programming expert Mark Nelson is director of

software development for Greenleaf Software, Inc., and is contributing

editor and columnist for Windows/DOS Developer's Journal. Mark's

articles have been published in Dr. Dobb's Journal, C User's

Journal, and Windows Tech Journal, among other publications.

He has written best-selling books on data compression and serial

communications.

Product Details

• Paperback: 557 pages
• Publisher: M&T Books; 2 Pap/Dsk edition (April 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1558514341
• ISBN-13: 978-1558514348
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.1 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #664,590 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars a book which has its positive and negative sides..., June 19, 2000

By	+++ (CA, United States) - See all my reviews

PROs: 1. It is one of very few books on data compression available on the market. 2. Description of the IDEAS of compression techniques is very well written. 3. The books comes with the C code for most algorithms. 4. Fairly wide scope of data compression techniques is presented.

CONs: 1. Possibly for copyright reasons, the formats of commonly used file formats are not disclosed; the enclosed propgrams are generic compression algorithms, which do not create (or open) actual .ZIP, .ARC, or .JPG files, which can be opened by commercial programs. Therefore, this book will not help you to open standard compressed files from your home-made programs. 2. There is a missing link between the well described ideas (general principles) of the compression techniques, and their actual algorithms presented as C programs - namely, the algorithms are not described verbally. You have to analyze typically 6-page-long programs to understand how the actual encoding is done. 3. Although there is a section on sound compression, the MP3 standard is not explained. The same applies to MPEG.

SUMMARY: Good to get a general idea how the data compression is performed. Helpful if you want to develop your own compressed data format. Of very limited help if you want to work with standard compressed files in your own program. Requires knowledge of C and some time to study the enclosed code.

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars OK for implementors, August 25, 2000

By	danny (Hod-Hasharon Israel) - See all my reviews

If you want to implement a compression scheme fast easily, or to have general knowledge about compression algorithms this is a very good book. If you really want to deeply understand compression algorithms, to have some kind of insight about them, and to know about the best algorithms available today - this book is has less benefit (understatement).

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best book for programmers needing algorithms not theory., September 1, 1999

By A Customer

This book did a better job than any other of teaching me sliding window dictionary encoding and adaptive huffman encoding. It got right to the point in an easy to understand fashon. There was no thick cloud of theory masking the information I needed. Read this book before you read others on the subject of data compression.