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In the field of data compression, Shannon – Fano coding, named after Claude Shannon and Robert Fano, is a technique for constructing a prefix code based on a set of symbols and their probabilities ( estimated or measured ).

It is suboptimal in the sense that it does not achieve the lowest possible expected code word length like Huffman coding ; however unlike Huffman coding, it does guarantee that all code word lengths are within one bit of their theoretical ideal.

The technique was proposed in Shannon's " A Mathematical Theory of Communication ", his 1948 article introducing the field of information theory.

The method was attributed to Fano, who later published it as a technical report.