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Suppose the letters a, b, c, d, e, f have probabilities 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 1/32, 1/32 respectively. What is the average length of Huffman codes?
  • a)
    3
  • b)
    2.1875
  • c)
    2.25
  • d)
    1.9375
Correct answer is option 'D'. Can you explain this answer?
Verified Answer
Suppose the letters a, b, c, d, e, f have probabilities 1/2, 1/4, 1/8,...
We get the following Huffman Tree after applying Huffman Coding Algorithm. The idea is to keep the least probable characters as low as possible by picking them first.
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Most Upvoted Answer
Suppose the letters a, b, c, d, e, f have probabilities 1/2, 1/4, 1/8,...
Huffman coding is a lossless data compression algorithm that assigns variable-length codes to characters based on their frequencies. The more frequent the character, the shorter the code.

To find the average length of Huffman codes for the given probabilities, we can follow these steps:

Step 1: Arrange the probabilities in descending order

- a: 1/2
- b: 1/4
- c: 1/8
- d: 1/16
- e: 1/32
- f: 1/32

Step 2: Build a Huffman tree

- Combine the two lowest probabilities (e and f) to create a subtree with a probability of 1/16.
- Combine the next lowest probability (d) with the subtree to create a subtree with a probability of 3/32.
- Combine the next lowest probability (c) with the subtree to create a subtree with a probability of 7/64.
- Combine the next lowest probability (b) with the subtree to create a subtree with a probability of 15/128.
- Combine the highest probability (a) with the subtree to create the root of the tree with a probability of 31/256.

The resulting Huffman tree looks like this:

```
/\
/ \
/ \
/ \
/ \
/ \
e/f d
/ \ / \
e f c b
```

Step 3: Assign codes to the characters

- Traverse the tree from the root to each leaf, assigning a 0 for a left branch and a 1 for a right branch.
- The codes for each character are as follows:

a: 0
b: 111
c: 1101
d: 1100
e: 1000
f: 1001

Step 4: Calculate the average length of the codes

- Multiply each code length by its probability and sum the results:

(0)(1/2) + (3)(1/4) + (4)(1/8) + (4)(1/16) + (4)(1/32) + (4)(1/32) = 31/16

- Therefore, the average length of the Huffman codes is 31/16 or 1.9375.
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