Huffman coding
![Huffman tree generated from the exact frequencies of the text](/Images/godic/202501/18/Huffman_tree_2.svg0519.png")
![Constructing a Huffman Tree](/Images/godic/202501/18/HuffmanCodeAlg0520.png")
![](/Images/godic/202501/18/Huffman_coding_example.svg0520.png")
![](/Images/godic/202501/18/Huffman_huff_demo0520.gif")
In computer science and information theory, a Huffman code is a particular type of optimal prefix code that is commonly used for lossless data compression. The process of finding and/or using such a code proceeds by means of Huffman coding, an algorithm developed by David A. Huffman while he was a Ph.D. student at MIT, and published in the 1952 paper "A Method for the Construction of Minimum-Redundancy Codes".