I'm looking for a convenient way to store Huffman tree inside the file for further reading and decoding. Here is my Node structure:
struct Node
{
char ch;
int freq;
Node *left, *right;
Node(char symbol, int frequency, Node *left_Node, Node *right_Node) : ch(symbol),
freq(frequency),
left(left_Node),
right(right_Node){};
};
I'm using pointers, so I'm not sure about how to store it. Here is the way how I'm building the tree:
void buildTree(std::priority_queue<Node *, std::vector<Node *>, comp> &pq, std::multimap<int, char> &freqsTable)
{
for (auto pair : freqsTable)
{
Node *node = new Node(pair.second, pair.first, nullptr, nullptr);
pq.push(node);
}
while (pq.size() != 1)
{
Node *left = pq.top();
pq.pop();
Node *right = pq.top();
pq.pop();
int freqsSum = left->freq + right->freq;
Node *node = new Node('\0', freqsSum, left, right);
pq.push(node);
}
}
Traverse the tree recursively. At each node, send a 0 bit. At each leaf (pointers are nullptr
), send a 1 bit, followed by the eight bits of the character.
On the other end, read a bit, make a new node if it's a zero. If it's a 1, make a leaf with the next eight bits as a character. Proceed to the next empty pointer. The tree will naturally complete, so there is no need for an end marker in the description.