The reduction of the number of
data elements,
bandwidth, cost, and
time for the generation,
transmission, and
storage of data without loss of
information by eliminating unnecessary
redundancy, removing irrelevancy, or using special
coding.
Note 1: Examples of data compaction methods are the use of fixed-
tolerance bands, variable-tolerance bands,
slope-keypoints, sample changes, curve patterns, curve fitting, variable-
precision coding,
frequency analysis, and probability analysis.
Note 2: Simply squeezing noncompacted data into a smaller space, for example by increasing
packing density or by transferring data on punched cards onto
magnetic tape, is not data compaction.
Note 3: Whereas data compaction reduces the amount of data used to represent a given amount of information,
data compression does not.