Less then 8 bit data ?

Hello, im coding Shanoon fanoo algorith rn which compressed images by changing the code of most occuring bits to smaller codes, but the problem is matlab always makes them int8, while i need to make them smaller then that, what's a workaround ?

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

The newest "bit-sliced" computer that I can find (one able to index down to single bits) was 1981. I seem to have a memory of one designed in roughly 1984-ish, but it would be a fair strain to remember any details.

Basically, what you are asking to do has not been supported on computers in decades.

What people do instead is one of:

• use byte arrays for all working calculations, and pack the bits into bytes when it comes time to write to file; Or
• pack multiple bits into a single byte (or word or long word) by keeping track of the relative position and using arithmetic operations. In MATLAB, you can use bitset() and bitget()

[Adel Hafri]

Man, i dont know how i didnt think come i didnt think of storing the bits into a single byte, but it totally works, thank you so much!