Implementation and Analysis of Lossless Data Compression

Abstract

The paper focuses on the invention and examination of three lossless data compression techniques: Shannon-Fano, Huffman, and the Burrows-Wheeler Transform (BWT). The results of each approach applied to a group of files are compared and evaluated. The Shannon-Fano approach has varied compression and decompression timings across files, with compression timings ranging from 30 to 260 milliseconds and decompression timings ranging from 120 to 2000 milliseconds. The approach achieves varying levels of compression, resulting in less storage space and computing time among datasets. The Huffman technique, on the other hand, yields compression ratios that vary between 0.19 to 0.9, with associated saving percentages ranging from 20.0% to 72.5%. The BWT algorithm showcases compression ratios ranging from 0.2 to 0.7 and saving percentages from 25.0% to 90.0%. By analyzing the results, the study provides valuable insights into the performance of these compression techniques and their effectiveness in handling diverse datasets.