Deflate Algorithm
The Deflate algorithm is a widely used lossless data compression algorithm that combines LZ77 (a dictionary-based compression technique) and Huffman coding (an entropy encoding method). It is designed to efficiently compress data by replacing repeated sequences with references and encoding symbols based on their frequency, resulting in reduced file sizes without loss of information. Deflate is the foundation for many compression formats, including gzip, PNG, and ZIP.
Developers should learn and use the Deflate algorithm when implementing data compression in applications to reduce storage requirements, speed up data transmission over networks, or optimize resource usage in embedded systems. It is particularly useful in web development for compressing HTTP responses (via gzip), in file archiving tools (like ZIP), and in image formats (such as PNG) to minimize file sizes while maintaining data integrity.