Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Users Search
Help Dashboard Sign In Sign Up
Q&A Code Reviews Meta
Q&A
Posts Tags Edits
Ask Question

Welcome to Software Development on Codidact!

Will you help us build our independent community of developers helping developers? We're small and trying to grow. We welcome questions about all aspects of software development, from design to code to QA and more. Got questions? Got answers? Got code you'd like someone to review? Please join us.

Comments on Why often times data compression causes data loss?

Post

Why often times data compression causes data loss?

+2
−3

I understand data compression as making data structures nearer (if they are mere machine code without any abstract representation) or representing them in less and less abstract computer languages (from the "complicated" to the "simple").

If so;
Why often times data compression causes data loss?
I don't understand why either "removing gaps" to re-organize data better (as in data defragmentation) or a simpler representation (simpler machine code in computer memory) would neccessate data loss.

I think that my question stands whether the data we work with is "archived" or "not archived".

Update_note: Given the answers and the downvotes I guess I misunderstood the little I have read about this topic, as well as confused it with defragmentation.

data-structures compression data-loss
posted about 3 years ago
3y ago
deleted user
History
Why does this post require moderator attention?
You might want to add some details to your flag.
Why should this post be closed?

1 comment thread

General comments (4 comments)
General comments
deleted user wrote about 3 years ago
copy link

Given the down vote I would have tried to edit to improve the question based on any constructive comment (although it was already heavily quoted so perhaps I shouldn't try to do so).

Olin Lathrop‭ wrote about 3 years ago · edited about 3 years ago
copy link

You claim to be asking about data compression, but then your examples don't have anything to do with compression, your description of what data compression means makes no sense, and certainly isn't about data compression. Compression is about reducing the size of data by eliminating redundancy.

Skipping 1 deleted comment.

EJP‭ wrote almost 3 years ago
copy link

You have confused compression in artefacts like JPEG and MPEG, which are both lossy, with data compression in general, which in general isn't lossy. Defragmentation has absoultely nothing to do with any of it.

deleted user wrote almost 3 years ago
copy link

@EJIP the claim that data compression in general, is generally not lossy --- is very interesting for me ; it is an elegant argument and intuitively correct. Maybe you'd have anything to elaborate more on that specific argument.