A multiplication-free multialphabet arithmetic code

A recursion for arithmetic codes used for data compression is described which requires no multiplication or division, even in the case of nonbinary alphabets. For this reason, such a code admits a simple and fast hardware implementation. The inputs to the code are, in addition to the symbols to be encoded, either the symbol probabilities or, more simply, the corresponding occurrence counts. Hence, the code is applicable in conjunction with stationary and nonstationary models alike. The code efficiency is typically in the range of 97-99%