A METHOD FOR SPACE-SAVING-VARIABLE LENGTH ENCODING OF INPUT INFORMATION ITEMS THROUGH ASSIGNING CODE BIT GROUPS TO RESPECTIVE SUB-CHAININGS THAT EACH GET A POINTER, AND TO AN APPARATUS ARRANGED FOR ENCODING AND/OR BIDIRECTIONAL DECODING ACCORDINGLY

摘要

A sequence of input information items (20) is space-saving-encoded into variable-length code bit groups. Each information item is mapped on an associated code bit group of a set of bit groups, wherein the bit groups have particular lengths that are non-uniform in the set. Next, the code bit groups are chained into a chaining configuration of bit groups whilst allowing progressive delimiting of successive bit groups. In particular, for allowing regressive delimiting of successive bit groups each bit group is divided into an idiosyncratic sequence of subgroups. In each sequence the subgroups are assigned to a respective sub-chainings (23, 24, 25). The sub-chainings are configured into respective sub-chaining configurations, whilst maintaining pointer informations (29, 30, 31) regarding each respective sub-chaining configuration to preserve mutual synchronization among the various sub-chaining configurations regarding the associated in formation items.