A Block-sorting Lossless Data Compression Algorithm

Abstract

We describe a block-sorting, lossless data compression algorithm, and our implementation of that algorithm. We compare the performance of our implementation with widely available data compressors running on the same hardware.
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\nThe algorithm works by applying a reversible transformation to a block of input text. The transformation does not itself compress the data, but reorders it to make it easy to compress with simple algorithms such as move-to-front coding. 
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\nOur algorithm achieves speed comparable to algorithms based on the techniques of Lempel and Ziv, but obtains compression close to the best statistical modelling techniques. The size of the input block must be large (a few kilobytes) to achieve good compression.