Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index

Elias Gamma coding

Elias Gamma code is a universal code encoding the positive integers. To code a number:
  1. Write it in binary.
  2. Subtract 1 from the number of bits written in step 1 and prepend that many zeros.
The code begins:
 1 1
 2 010
 3 011
 4 00100
 5 00101
 6 00110
 7 00111
 8 0001000
 9 0001001
10 0001010
11 0001011
12 0001100
13 0001101
14 0001110
15 0001111
16 000010000
17 000010001

See also Elias Delta coding