variable-byte encoding

noun
UK /ˈveəriəbl baɪt ɪnˈkəʊdɪŋ/
US /ˈveriəbl baɪt ɪnˈkoʊdɪŋ/

A way of storing text where common characters take up one byte and rarer ones take up more bytes.

UTF-8 is a popular variable-byte encoding used on most websites.

SYNONYMS

variable-length encodingvariable-width encodingmultibyte encodingvariable-size encoding

RELATED WORDS

UTF-8bytecharacter encodingUnicodecode point

OTHER MEANINGS

2. A data compression scheme in which each value is stored using a number of bytes that depends on its size.

The protocol uses variable-byte encoding to keep small numbers short.

3. Any character set where symbols are not all the same length in bytes.

Legacy East Asian encodings are variable-byte encodings.

4. A storage format that saves space by giving frequent items shorter byte sequences.

The index relies on variable-byte encoding to shrink its size.