- Name: El Mehdi Hamte - MrFall
- Date: 26-11-2026

This project implements file compression and decompression using the Huffman algorithm in the C programming language.

The goal is to minimize the number of bits needed to represent characters by assigning shorter codes to frequent characters and longer codes to rare characters.

We count how many times each character appears in the input file.

• Leaves = characters and their frequencies
• Internal nodes = sum of children
• Always merge the two smallest nodes first using a Min-Heap

Each path from root to leaf generates a code:

• Left → 0
• Right → 1

• Replace each character with its Huffman code
• Bits are grouped into bytes
• Last byte may contain padding → stored in a .meta file

• Rebuild the Huffman tree from codes.map
• Decode the compressed bit stream
• Remove padding
• Restore the original text exactly

echo "ABRACADABRA" > input.txt

gcc main.c huffman.c minheap.c -o huff

(or simply)

make

./huff encode input.txt compressed.huf codes.map

This generates:

• compressed.huf → compressed binary file
• codes.map → Huffman codes used
• compressed.huf.meta → padding info

./huff decode compressed.huf compressed.huf.meta codes.map mrfall.txt

cat mrfall.txt

Expected:

ABRACADABRA

Compression becomes more effective with larger and more repetitive input data.

Learn Huffman Coding visually: