Files are just a bunch of bits, how is it possible to make the filesize smaller without removing any of those bits?
In: 3
Some decent explanations here, but I’ll give you a much easier one.
It’s just language interpretation. When you read LMAO or LOL you already know what those are. You’ve compressed these words yourself with a type of language interpretation called an acronym.
When you parse LMAO and LOL through a specific interpretation you get the original full words back, meaning the compression was lossless. Lossless means you always get the full original content back reinterpreting it.
The only difference between a language acronym and what a general lossless compression method does is that these language interpretations are arbitrary, and general lossless compression like deflate (ZIP) tries to be generalized instead of only applying to specific words.
The way you do that is to find patterns in average things you’re looking to compress. Patterns can be compressed because they can be recognized and interpreted to then be something else.
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