On the value of multiple read/write streams for data compression
Information Theory, Combinatorics, and Search Theory
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Shannon's self-information of a string is generalized to its complexity relative to the class of finite-state-machine (FSM) defined sources. Unlike an earlier generalization, the new one is valid for both short and long strings. The definition is justified in part by a theorem stating that, asymptotically, the mean complexity provides a tight lower bound for the mean length of all so-called regular codes. This also generalizes Shannon's noiseless coding theorem. For a large subclass of FSM sources a simple algorithm is described for computing the complexity.