deltaencoded

Deltaencoded refers to data that has been encoded using delta encoding, a technique that stores only the differences between successive values rather than the absolute values. In a typical delta encoding, the first element is stored in full, and each subsequent element is represented by the difference from the previous element. The encoded form thus consists of an initial value followed by a sequence of deltas. A decoder reconstructs the original data by cumulatively summing the deltas starting from the initial value.

This approach is effective when successive data points are similar, as the deltas tend to be small and often compressible. Delta encoding is widely used in time-series data, streaming, and storage systems to reduce redundancy. It also appears in version control and data synchronization workflows, where changes between successive states can be represented compactly. In multimedia contexts, delta frames or difference data are used to store only the changes between frames, contributing to efficient video and audio encoding.

Advantages of delta encoding include simple implementation and substantial storage savings for well-behaved data with small changes. It also enables efficient incremental updates and streaming. Disadvantages arise when data changes abruptly, causing large or random deltas that reduce compression gains and sometimes increase decoding complexity. Handling negative deltas typically requires sign information or alternative coding for optimal compression.

Examples: Original sequence [100, 103, 101, 110] can be encoded as [100, 3, -2, 9]. Decoding yields the original values by cumulative addition.