From: cmcl2!cod.nosc.mil!murphys (Steven P. Murphy)
This is documentation for the encode and decode C source which follows
in separate postings.

LZW compression used to encode/decode a GIF file by Bob Montgomery [73357,3140]

ENCODER
Consider the following input data stream in a 4 color (A, B, C, D)  system.  
We will build a table of codes which represent strings of colors. Each time 
we  find a new string, we will give it the next code, and break it  into  a 
prefix string and a suffix color. The symbols \ or --- represent the prefix 
string, and / represents the suffix color. The first 4 entries in the table 
are  the  4 colors with codes 0 thru 3, each of which represents  a  single 
color.  The next 2 codes (4 and 5) are the clear code and the end of  image 
code.  The first available code to represent a string of colors is 6.  Each 
time  we  find  a new code, we will send the prefix for that  code  to  the 
output data stream. 

A B A B A B A B B B A B A B A  A  C  D A C D A D  C A B A A A B A B .....
\/\/---/-----/\/---/-------/\/ \/ \ /\/---/---/\ /\/-----/---/---/
6 7   8     9 10 11      12 13 14 15 16  17 18 19 20   21  22  23     Code
    6    8      10    8                14  16        8    13  7       Prefix

The  encoder table is built from input data stream. Always start  with  the 
suffix  of  last  code,  and  keep getting colors  until  you  have  a  new 
combination.

Color     Code      Prefix    Suffix    String    Output
 A        0                             -
 B        1                             -
 C        2                             -
 D        3                             -
Clear     4                             -
End       5                             -
 A \                A         A                   First color is a special case.
 B /  \   6         A         B         AB        A
 A |  /   7         B         A         BA        B
 B |
 A /  |   8         6         A         ABA       6
 B    |
 A    |
 B \  /   9         8         B         ABAB      8
 B /  |   10        B         B         BB        B
 B    |
 A |  /   11        10        A         BBA       10
 B |
 A |
 B |
 A /  \   12        9         A         ABABA     9
 A \  /   13        A         A         AA        A
 C /  \   14        A         C         AC        A
 D \  /   15        C         D         CD        C
 A /  |   16        D         A         DA        D
 C    |
 D |  /   17        14        D         ACD       14
 A |
 D /  \   18        16        D         DAD       16
 C \  /   19        D         C         DC        D
 A /  |   20        C         A         CA        C
 B    |
 A    |
 A |  /   21        8         A         ABAA      8
 A |
 B /  |   22        13        B         AAB       13
 A    |
 B    /   23        7         B         BAB       7
 
The  resultant  output stream is: A B 6 8 B 10 9 A A C D 14 16 D C 8 ....  
The  GIF encoder starts with a code length of 2+1=3 bits for 4  colors,  so 
when  the code reaches 8 we will have to increase the code size to 4  bits. 
Similarly,  when the code gets to 16 we will have to increse the code  size 
to 5 bits, etc. If the code gets to 13 bits, we send a clear code and start 
over.   See GIFENCOD.GIF for a flow diagram of the encoding  process.  This 
uses a tree method to search if a new string is already in the table, which 
is much simpler, faster, and easier to understand than hashing.

===========================================================================

DECODER

We will now see if we can regenerate the original data stream and duplicate 
the  table looking only at the output data stream generated by the  encoder 
on the previous page. The output data stream is:

          A B 6 8 B 10 9 A A C D 14 16 D C 8 ....

The  docoding process is harder to see, but easier to implement,  than  the 
encoding process. The data is taken in pairs, and a new code is assigned to 
each  pair. The prefix is the left side of the pair, and the suffix is  the 
color  that  the right side of the pair decomposes to from the  table.  The 
decomposition  is done by outputing the suffix of the code, and  using  the 
prefix  as the new code. The process repeats until the prefix is  a  single 
color, and it is output too. The output of the decomposition is pushed onto 
a  stack, and then poped off the stack to the display, which  restores  the 
original  order that the colors were seen by the encoder. We will  go  thru 
the  first  few entries in detail, which will hopefully  make  the  process 
clearer. 
     The  first pair is (A B), so the prefix of code 6 is A and the  suffix 
is B, and 6 represents the string AB. The color A is sent to the display. 
     The 2nd pair is (B 6), so the prefix of code 7 is B and the suffix  is 
the  the last color in the decomposition of code 6. Code 6 decomposes  into 
BA, so code 7 = BA, and has a suffix A. The color B is sent to the display.
     The 3rd pair is (6 8) and the next code is 8. How can we decompose  8.  
We  know that the prefix of code 8 is 6, but we don't know the suffix.  The 
answer  is that we use the suffix of the prefix code; A in this case  since 
the suffix of 6 is A. Thus, code 8 = ABA and has a suffix A. We decompose 6 
to get BA, which becomes AB when we pop it off the stack to the display.
     The 4th pair is (8 B), so code 9 has a prefix of 8 and a suffix of  B, 
and  code  9  = ABAB. We output ABA to the stack, and pop  it  off  to  the 
display as ABA.
     The 5th pair is (B 10) and the next code is 10. The prefix of code  10 
is  B  and the suffix is B (since the prefix is B). Code 10 =  BB,  and  we 
output the prefix B to the display.
     The  6th  pair is (10 9) and the next code is 11. Thus the  prefix  of 
code  11 is 10 and the suffix is the last color in the decomposition of  9, 
which is A.  Thus code 11 = BBA, And we output BB to the display.
     So  far, we have output the correct colors stream A B AB ABA B  BB  to 
the display, and have duplicated the codes 6 thru 11 in the encoder  table. 
This  process  is  repeated for the whole data stream  to  reconstruct  the 
original  color stream and build a table identical to the one built by  the 
encoder.  We start the table with codes 0-5 representing the 4 colors,  the 
clear  code, and the end code. When we get to code 8, we must  increse  the 
code  size  to  5 bits, etc.  See GIFDECOD.GIF for a flow  diagram  of  the 
decoding process.

I Hope this helps take some of the mystery out of LZW compression, which is
really quite easy once you 'see' it.      Bob Montgomery
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