File Compression Intuitively,those characters with large frequencies should be assigned short encodings,whereas long encodings may be assigned to those characters with small frequencies. ■ When the encodings vary in length,we stipulate that the encoding of one character must not be the prefix of the encoding of another character;such codes are called prefix codes. ■ For instance,if we assign the encodings 10 and 101 to the letters“a”and“b',there will be an ambiguity as to whether 10 is the encoding of“a”or is the prefix of the encoding of the letter“b”.File Compression ◼ Intuitively, those characters with large frequencies should be assigned short encodings, whereas long encodings may be assigned to those characters with small frequencies. ◼ When the encodings vary in length, we stipulate that the encoding of one character must not be the prefix of the encoding of another character; such codes are called prefix codes. ◼ For instance, if we assign the encodings 10 and 101 to the letters “a” and “b”, there will be an ambiguity as to whether 10 is the encoding of “a” or is the prefix of the encoding of the letter “b