Page "Run-length encoding" Paragraph 7

The run-length code represents the original 67 characters in only 18.

Of course, the actual format used for the storage of images is generally binary rather than ASCII characters like this, but the principle remains the same.

Even binary data files can be compressed with this method ; file format specifications often dictate repeated bytes in files as padding space.

However, newer compression methods such as DEFLATE often use LZ77-based algorithms, a generalization of run-length encoding that can take advantage of runs of strings of characters ( such as ).