Compute Expected Code Length of 5 Nodes

[david90]

The question ask me to compute the expected code length of

5 nodes A B C D E each of frequency .1 .1 .2 .2 .4 respectively.

I already did the tree and derive the huffman code.

What does it mean by " compute the expected code length ?"

 

[suffian]

i guess it means the avg size of the encoded data in bits per symbol.

 

[TenaliRaman]

expected code length is also called the average code length (L)
= \sum_{i=0}^{n} p_i * l_i
where p_i is the probability of the symbol and l_i is the length of the symbol

-- AI