huffman encoding solution

cchuffmancompression/README.md

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+# 🗜️ Huffman Compression Tool in Node.js
+
+This project implements a basic **file compressor and decompressor** using the [Huffman coding algorithm](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huffman_coding), built entirely in **Node.js**.
+
+> 💡 This project was created as part of [John Crickett’s]() _"Coding Challenges"_ challenge series.
+
+---
+
+## 📦 Features
+
+- 📊 Builds a Huffman tree from character frequencies
+- 🔢 Generates binary codes for each character
+- 💾 Compresses and decompresses `.txt` files
+- 🧠 Minimal implementation without external libraries
+- ⚡ Optimized with priority queues and efficient tree traversal
+
+---
+
+## 🚀 Getting Started
+
+### Prerequisites
+
+- [Node.js](https://nodejs.org/) (v14 or newer recommended)
+
+### Clone the Repository
+
+```bash
+git clone https://github.com/your-username/huffman-compressor.git
+cd huffman-compressor
+```
+
+### Usage
+
+#### 1. Compress a file
+
+```bash
+node index..js input.txt --compress
+```
+
+- Creates a file called `compressed.txt`
+
+#### 2. Decompress a file
+
+```bash
+node index.js compressed.txt --decompress
+```
+
+- Creates a file called `decompressed.txt`
+
+---
+
+## 🧠 How It Works
+
+### Compression
+
+1. Count character frequencies
+2. Build a min-heap (priority queue)
+3. Construct a binary Huffman tree
+4. Generate binary codes for each character
+5. Encode message using generated codes
+6. Serialize the tree + encoded string to a file
+
+### Decompression
+
+1. Deserialize the Huffman tree
+2. Traverse the tree according to each bit
+3. Recover original characters and write output
+
+---
+
+## 📁 Project Structure
+
+```
+huffman-compressor/
+│
+├── index.js           # Main script (compress/decompress)
+├── input.txt            # Sample input file
+├── compressed.txt       # Output after compression
+├── decompressed.txt     # Output after decompression
+└── README.md            # This file
+```
+
+---
+
+## 🔧 Example
+
+```
+Input:        hello huffman
+Compressed:   (binary string + serialized tree)
+Decompressed: hello huffman
+```
+
+---