哈夫曼（Huffman）树又称最优二叉树或最优搜索树，是一种带权路径长度最短的二叉树。在许多应用中，常常赋给树中结点一个有某种意义的实数，称此实数为该结点的权。从树根结点到该结点之间的路径长度与该结点上权的乘积称为结点的带权路径长度(WPL)，树中所有叶子结点的带权路径长度之和称为该树的带权路径长度.(The Huffman (Huffman) tree, also known as the optimal two - fork tree or the optimal search tree, is a two - fork tree with the shortest path length. In many applications, it is often assigned to a node in a tree with a real number of meaning, which is called the right of the node. The product from the root node to the node between the node and the weight on the node is called the weighted path length (WPL) of the node. The sum of the weighted path length of all leaf nodes in the tree is called the weighted path length of the tree.)