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�Data Compression� just sounds complicated. Don�t be
afraid, compression is our good friend for many reasons. It saves hard drive
space. It makes data files to handle. It also cuts those immense file download
times from the Internet. Wouldn�t it be nice if we could compress all files
down to just a few bytes?

There is a limit to how much you can compress
a file. How random the file is, is the determining factor to how far it can
be compressed. If the file is completely random and no pattern can be found,
then the shortest representation of the file is the file it self. The actual
proof that proves this is at the end of my paper. The key to compressing a
file is to find some sort of exploitable pattern. Most of this paper will
be explaining those patterns that are commonly used.

Null suppression is
the most primitive form of data compression that I could find. Basically,
it says that if you have different fields that data is in (possibly a spread
sheet), and any of them have only zeros in them, then the program just eliminates
the data and goes straight from the empty data set to the next.

Only one
step up from null suppression is Run Length Encoding. Run length encoding
simply tells you how many of what you have in a row. It would change a set
of binary data like {0011100001} into what the computer reads as (2)zeros,
(3)ones, (4)zeros, 1. As you can see, it works on the same basic idea of finding
a series of 0�s (null suppression) and 1�s in this case too and abbreviating
them.

Once the whole idea of data compression caught on, more people started
working on programs for it. From these people we got some new premises to
work with. Substitutional encoding is a big...