Full description of a compression algorithm

Question

I am looking for a compression algorithm (for a programming competition) and I need a full description of how to implement it (all technical details), any loseless and patent-free algorithm will do, but the ease of implementation is a bonus :)

(Although possibly irrelevant) I plan to implement the algorithm in C++...

Thanks in advance.

EDIT: I will be compressing text files only, no other file types...

Answer 1

Well, I can't go so far as to complete the competition for you, but please check out this article on wiki: Run Length Encoding. It is by far one of the simplest ways to compress data, albeit not always an efficient one. Compression is also domain specific, even amongst lossless algorithms you will find that what you are compressing determines how best to encode it.

Answer 2

I'd start here on Wikipedia.

There's a whole lot to choose from, but without knowing more about what you want it's difficult to help more. Are you compressing text, images, video or just random files? Each one has it's own set of techniques and challenges for optimal results.

If ease of implementation is the sole criterion I'd use "filecopy" compression. Guaranteed compression ratio of exactly 1:1, and trivial implementation...