Synchronizing codewords of q-ary Huffman codes Original Research Article

Some Huffman codes contain a special codeword called a synchronizing codeword, which resynchronizes the code whenever it is transmitted. We demonstrate properties of synchronizing codewords and, in particular, give some relationships between the length of the shortest codeword and the length and structure of the synchronizing codeword. A tight upper bound and some lower bounds are presented. We show that given a shortest codeword of length m and a synchronizing codeword of length r<2m − 1 then the code also contains other synchronizing codewords. We calculate the number and lengths of these codewords. Finally, several examples of good codes are given.