Editing Elias gamma coding (section)

==Uses==
Gamma coding is used in applications where the largest encoded value is not known ahead of time, or to [[Data compression|compress]] data in which small values are much more frequent than large values.

Gamma coding can be more size efficient in those situations. For example, note that, in the table above, if a fixed 8-bit size is chosen to store a small number like the number 5, the resulting binary would be <code>00000101</code>, while the γ-encoding variable-bit version would be <code>00 1 01</code>, needing 3 bits less. On the contrary, bigger values, like 254 stored in fixed 8-bit size, would be <code>11111110</code> while the γ-encoding variable-bit version would be <code>0000000 1 1111110</code>, needing 7 extra bits.

Gamma coding is a building block in the [[Elias delta code]].