Huffman Coding File Compression and Decompression

Description

This is the project which I did in my 4th semester as part of the Data Structures and Algorithms subject. In this project, I implemented the Huffman Coding Algorithm for file compression and decompression. The algorithm is used to compress text files by encoding characters into variable-length codes based on their frequencies in the file. The project includes functionalities for both compressing and decompressing text files.

Features:

• File Compression: Compresses a text file using Huffman coding.
• File Decompression: Decompresses the .bin file and restores the original text.
• Efficient Data Encoding: Uses shorter codes for frequent characters and longer codes for less frequent ones.
• Padding: Adds necessary padding to ensure that the final binary string is a multiple of 8 bits for storage.

How it Works

1. Compression:

   • The program reads the input text file and calculates the frequency of each character.
   • A Huffman Tree is built using the character frequencies, where the most frequent characters are assigned shorter codes.
   • The text is encoded into a binary string using these codes.
   • Padding is added to ensure that the binary string is a multiple of 8 bits.
   • The binary string is then converted into bytes and saved in a .bin file.

2. Decompression:

   • The program reads the compressed .bin file, extracts the binary data, and removes the padding.
   • The binary data is decoded using the Huffman Tree to reconstruct the original text.

Requirements

• C++ Compiler (C++11 or later)
• Standard C++ libraries (<bits/stdc++.h>, <fstream>, <bitset>)

How to Use

1. Compile the Program:

   • Use a C++ compiler to compile the project:

     g++ -o huffman_compression_decompression huffman_compression_decompression.cpp

2. Run the Program:

   • Create an object of the HuffmanCode class by providing the path to the input text file:

     HuffmanCode huff("./input.txt");  // path to the input file
     huff.compressFile();              // Compress the file
     huff.decompressFile();            // Decompress the file

3. Input and Output:

   • The program generates a .bin compressed file and a .txt decompressed file.

Sample Input: