Talk:Unary coding
Add topicLatest comment: 1 year ago by Chris2crawford in topic "if the term natural number is understood"
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Prefix-free or self-synchronizing?
[edit]I'm new to this subject but I noticed an apparent contradiction:
> Unary coding is both a prefix-free code and a self-synchronizing code.
Is in the first paragraph, so I learn that Unary coding is prefix-free. But then clicking through to Self-synchronizing_code I read:
> Every self-synchronizing code is a prefix code, but not all prefix codes are self-synchronizing.
So if it's self-synchronizing it must be a prefix code, but the article says it's prefix-free. What am I missing? Paradox (talk) 17:27, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
- Nevermind - silly me, I thought that "prefix-free code" meant "code without prefixes" and thus assumed that "prefix code" meant the opposite, "code with prefixes".
- TIL that "prefix code" and "prefix-free code" are not opposites but actually synonyms.
- Sorry for the noise. I think the latter term is more intuitive, perhaps it could be used instead? Paradox (talk) 17:33, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
"if the term natural number is understood"
[edit]AFAIK, mathematically, the set of natural numbers is always {1,2,3...}. Chris2crawford (talk) 02:51, 20 July 2025 (UTC)