Krafts inequality

views updated

Kraft's inequality When an instantaneously decodable code is to be formed from an alphabet of q letters, with the ith codeword being λi letters in length, Kraft's inequality

is a necessary and sufficient condition for such a code to be constructable with n codewords. In a code with no codewords remaining for allocation, the equality sign operates. See also prefix codes.

More From encyclopedia.com