LEMPEL-ZIV DATA COMPRESSION WITH SHORTENED HASH CHAINS BASED ON REPETITIVE PATTERNS

Methods and apparatus are provided for Lempel-Ziv data compression with shortened hash chains based on repetitive multi-byte runs. Data is compressed by processing a sequence of data to identify a repetitive pattern, such as a multi-byte run; and providing indicators associated with the sequence of data of a start position and an end position of the repetitive pattern. The indicators of the start and end positions of the repetitive pattern may comprise, for example, flags associated with the positions. The indicators of the start and end positions of the repetitive pattern are processed to determine a sequence length of the repetitive pattern. In addition, a match can be identified in the sequence of data having a length that is greater than or equal to an offset of s bytes to identify a run comprised of an s-byte sequence.