From: Bogus@Embarq.com   
      
   Hi Rudy,   
      
   "R.Wieser"  writes:   
   >Bilal Ahmad,   
   >   
   >> And I was just giving an example of Huffman encoding, I didn't   
   >> mean specifically Huffman algo   
   >   
   >I didn't either, but as you specifically named that one I used it in an   
   >example to how to google it.   You could do the same for all kinds of   
   >compression methods: LZH, LZW, ARC, ZIP, you name it.   All of them can be   
   >implemented in Assembly, and I've seen code examples to all of the above   
   >floating on the 'web somewhere.   
   >   
   >> And i think it would be difficult to build a tree at asm level.   
   >   
   >Not really.  But if you think so, why don't you consider building trees as   
   >the first step to your goal ?   Forget everything else, and just concentrate   
   >on building (and traversing) a tree.  You will definitily learn a lot from   
   >experimenting with it. :-)   
   >   
   >Than again, you could also take a peek at (one of) the above compression   
   >methods, and look at how they did it.  In other words: Learning from the   
   >masters.   
   >   
   >> Like, we pack bits in some certain design, I tried to implement it,   
   >> but I think it is not that much efficient.   
   >   
   >Hmmm...   There are quite a number smart*sses (in a positive way) in this   
   >newsgroup, and quite a few will definitily want to help you *as long as* you   
   >would post something they could actually look at and comment upon.   
      
      I have written assembly code for run length encoding (PCX), packbits   
   (TGA and Apple paint/draw), LZW (GIF), and Huffman encoding (for the   
   heck of it.  The LZW took quite a while to write, and is really horrible to   
   look at.  The others were much easier to write and test for correct   
   operation.   
      
      That code was mostly written to decode or encode image data.  And   
   as such, the compression was secondary to the proper display of the   
   images.  If you want to consider compression as the primary goal; then   
   either characterize your data to find the appropriate algorithm, or try   
   them all and pick the best.  Run length and packbits are probably the   
   easiest to implement.  Huffman wasn't bad, but never had to do any   
   real world task.  LZW was difficult, though I made most of the problems   
   myself by poor planning and lousy, redundant coding.   
      
   Cheers,   
      
   Steve N.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)