Trying to decpmpress a coded file

i am writting a code to decompress a huffman file and i am a little bit confused.I am using the amount of charracters that was written into file to help me determine when to stop reading.I am a little bit confused because it seems like a maze

Code:

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void HuffmanENcodding :: decompressFile(ifstream &file){
    file.open("Thecompressed.txt");
    string text;
    unsigned char byte; //used to store a byte when read
    int length=8;
    int shift=7;
    int  direction; //used to determine whether to go left or right
    Node *root=new Composite(); //gets the top of my tree
    root=getRoot();
      for(int i=0;i<characterslenght;i++){
      if(length==8){
      byte=file.get();
      }
     
      while(length)
      direction=(byte>>shift) &1; //getting the bit starting from the msb
     
      getchild(root,direction);




  }


}

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above is a sample code

You don't have to use a literal tree to unpack the compression. In the tutorial the tree diagram is supposed to communicate the following:

You've encoded each character in a set number of bits. We can call it a part of the compression. You need to collect all of the bits in one part, and look up the corresponding character in a table. Remember when you used the prefix property (bit 0 in the tutorial), encountering the bit means that you should store it, decode, and start on a new part.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by whiteflags

You don't have to use a literal tree to unpack the compression. In the tutorial the tree diagram is supposed to communicate the following:

You've encoded each character in a set number of bits. We can call it a part of the compression. You need to collect all of the bits in one part, and look up the corresponding character in a table. Remember when you used the prefix property (bit 0 in the tutorial), encountering the bit means that you should store it, decode, and start on a new part.

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How can i collect all the bits in one part when there is no fixed size fot the number of bits a character is

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sigur47

How can i collect all the bits in one part when there is no fixed size fot the number of bits a character is

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There is, really. The maximum number of bits required to encode a character is also the maximum amount of storage you need to store the code. If you don't want to do that, which is a feeling I understand, you can count the bits.

1110

Three 1 bits is unique to every other code, and must map to some character. Maybe 3 could be used as an index in a big decoding table.