Unary coding, or the unary numeral system, is an entropy encoding that represents a natural number, n, with n ones followed by a zero (if the term natural number is understood as non-negative integer) or with n − 1 ones followed by a zero (if the term natural number is understood as strictly positive integer). A unary number's code length would thus be n + 1 with that first definition, or n with that second definition.
Unary coding, or the unary numeral system, is an entropy encoding that represents a natural number, n, with n ones followed by a zero (if the term natural number is understood as non-negative integer) or with n − 1 ones followed by a zero (if the term natural number is understood as strictly positive integer). A unary number's code length would thus be n + 1 with that first definition, or n with that second definition.
Source: Wikipedia "Unary coding" · CC BY-SA 4.0
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