Huffman File Compressor
Implement a Huffman file compressor from scratch in modern C++ using only the standard library. You count byte frequencies, build a Huffman tree with a priority queue, assign variable-length codes, and write a packed bitstream that you can later decode back to the original file. A satisfying dive into trees, greedy algorithms, and bit-level I/O.
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What You'll Build
A command-line tool that compresses any file into a smaller Huffman-encoded format and decompresses it back to a byte-for-byte identical original.
Learning Objectives
- Count byte frequencies across a file read in binary mode
- Build a Huffman tree using std::priority_queue
- Assign prefix-free codes by walking the tree recursively
- Pack and unpack individual bits into and out of bytes
- Serialise the code table into the output header for decoding
- Manage tree node ownership with std::unique_ptr and RAII
- Verify round-trip correctness against the source file
Coming Soon
This project is in development. Register your interest and we'll email you the moment it goes live.
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Coming Soon
This project is in development. Register your interest and we'll email you the moment it goes live.
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.