Huffman Text Compression Utility

This GitHub repository contains a command-line utility that demonstrates the Huffman compression algorithm for text compression. The utility allows you to compress text files using the Huffman coding technique. It is compatible with both Windows and Unix-like environments.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Getting Started
  • Prerequisites
  • Compilation
• Usage

Introduction

Huffman coding is a variable-length prefix coding algorithm used for lossless data compression. It assigns shorter binary codes to more frequent characters in the text, resulting in efficient compression. This utility provides a simple example of Huffman coding for text compression.

Getting Started

Prerequisites

To compile and use this utility, you'll need the following:

• C++ compiler (e.g., g++) for Unix-like systems or MinGW for Windows.
• A Windows or Unix-like environment.

Compilation

For Unix-like Systems (e.g., Linux, macOS)

To compile the main.cpp file using g++, follow these steps:

1. Clone or download this repository to your local machine:

   git clone https://github.com/apoorvapendse/ITC6-Text-Compressor.git

2. Navigate to the project directory:

   cd huffman-compression

3. Compile the main.cpp file using g++:

   g++ main.cpp -o huffman

   This command will create an executable file named huffman.

For Windows

To compile the main.cpp file on Windows using MinGW, follow these steps:

1. Install a C++ Compiler:

   If you don't already have a C++ compiler installed on your Windows machine, you can use MinGW, which provides a Windows port of GCC (GNU Compiler Collection). You can download MinGW from here.

2. Add MinGW to System Path:

   After installing MinGW, add its bin directory to your system's PATH environment variable. This will allow you to use g++ from the command prompt. To do this, you can follow these steps:

   • Right-click on "This PC" or "My Computer."
   • Select "Properties."
   • Click on "Advanced system settings."
   • Click on "Environment Variables."
   • In the "System Variables" section, scroll down to find "Path" and click "Edit."
   • Add the path to your MinGW bin directory (e.g., C:\MinGW\bin).

3. Open a Command Prompt:

   Open a command prompt or PowerShell window to compile and use the utility.

4. Compile the main.cpp File:

   In the command prompt, navigate to the project directory where main.cpp is located and compile it using the installed g++ (MinGW). The command will look like this:

   g++ main.cpp -o huffman

   This will create an executable file named huffman.exe.

Usage

Once you have compiled the utility, you can use it to compress text files using Huffman coding. To compress a text file, follow these steps:

1. Make sure you are in the project directory.

2. To compress a text file, run the huffman utility, passing the file name of the text you want to compress as a command-line argument. For example, if you have a file named sample.txt:

   huffman sample.txt

   The utility will compress the sample.txt file and display the output on your terminal window.

Please note that this utility is a simple demonstration and may not be suitable for compressing large or binary files. It is intended for educational purposes to illustrate the Huffman coding algorithm for text compression.