A fast-adaptive Huffman coding algorithm

The Huffman code in practice suffers from two problems: the prior knowledge of the probability distribution of the data source to be encoded is necessary, and the encoded data propagate errors. The first problem can be solved by adaptive coding, while the second problem can be partly solved by segmenting data into segments. However, the adaptive Huffman code performs badly when segmenting data into relatively small segments because of its relatively slow adaptability. A fast-adaptive coding algorithm which tracks the local data statistics more quickly, thus yielding better compression efficiency, is given. >