Variable length encoding/decoding apparatus using re-association of

Abstract

A variable length encoding/decoding apparatus using symbol-codeword re-association of a variable length code table includes a re-associator for storing symbol-address assignment information, address-codeword assignment information and address-counter-value assignment information, altering the symbol-address assignment information and the address-counter value assignment information according to the varied counter value due to the symbol identifying and outputting a variable length code table in which a symbol-codeword is re-associated to the encoder/decoder apparatus, and a controller for producing the initialized counter values based on probabilities of symbol occurrences belonging to the pre-defined variable length code table and the information stored in the re-associator based on the pre-defined updating unit, and storing the symbol-codeword re-associated variable length code table every predetermined updating unit in the encoder/decoder. A data compression efficiency can be improved even though global statistics corresponding to the pre-defined variable length code table and local statistics of the symbols/codewords which are actually variable-length-encoded/decoded do not match each other. Since it is not necessary to transmit the symbol-codeword re-association information at the encoding end to a decoding end, threre is no additional data to be transmitted by employing the present invention.