lossless data compression

Lossless data compression is a computer science technique used to reduce the amount of data needed for storage or transmission without losing any information. This is achieved by assigning shorter codes to more frequently occurring data elements, similar to how Morse Code uses shorter sequences for common letters.1

For example, in a text, if the letter 'a' appears more often than 't', 'r', or 'e', it can be assigned a shorter binary code. This process ensures that no code is a prefix of another, allowing for unambiguous decoding.1

While theoretical limits exist, practical methods like the Lempel-Ziv algorithm adapt to the data, often achieving around 50% compression for text files. This is crucial for efficient digital storage and transmission.12