lordpoint / string-compression

special character compression algorithm written in javascript

String Compression with Special Characters

Overview

Using javascript and jquery, this program takes a given input string and performs the following operations:

1. Searches the string for duplicate words
2. Sorts the duplicates according to the frequency of duplication
3. Replaces every duplicated word with an ASCII special Character (starting with the most duplicated word, it assigns the same special character to each instance of a duplicate word. When the list of special characters has been exhausted, the program adds x* special characters to replace the next word, where x = the number of times the special character list has been fully traversed.)
4. An index of the repeated words / corresponding symbols is retained for decompression.

NOTE: this version does not perform decompression. This is only a proof of concept for the special character method of compression. This is meant to be a starting point for experimenting with compression and related concepts. Later versions will look at things like: centralized dictionaries for common words & phrases, integration of ad-hoc dictionaries in the style of L-Z compression, and other creative methods for integrating the decompression keys into the compressed file.