workmajj / runlen

Quick practice writing a run-length encoder/decoder in C

runlen

Quick practice writing a run-length encoder/decoder in C

Contact

John J. Workman (@workmajj)

I worked on this software during my time as a Recurse Center facilitator. If you'd like to join a warm community of programmers dedicated to self-improvement, you should consider applying. :-)

Description

This pair of programs generates files with runs of capital letters (rungen), then encodes/decodes them (runlen) using a simple run-length encoding scheme. The code is robust in some ways (e.g., will skip newlines and other irrelevant chars) but mostly meant as a quick C exercise.

The RLE scheme used places multiplier numbers before their associated letters, and copies single letters verbatim (since, for example, 1X1Y1Z takes more room than just XYZ).

Install & Usage

1. In the project directory, build the two programs from source:

    $ make
   

2. Next, use rungen to create a file of random capital letter runs:

    $ ./rungen txt/original.txt
   

3. Now use runlen encode to run-length encode that original file:

    $ ./runlen encode txt/original.txt txt/encoded.txt
   

4. And runlen decode to decode that compressed version:

    $ ./runlen encode txt/encoded.txt txt/decoded.txt
   

5. Finally, use diff to confirm that the original and decoded files match:

    $ diff txt/original.txt txt/decoded.txt
   

License

This code is in the public domain.