A system for the compression of data files, viewed as strings of characters, is presented. The method is general, and applies equally well to English, to PL/I, or to digital data. The system consists of an encoder, an analysis program, and a decoder. Two algorithms for encoding a string differ slightly from earlier proposals. The analysis program attempts to find an optimal set of codes for representing substrings of the file. Four new algorithms for this operation are described and compared. Various parameters in the algorithms are optimized to obtain a high degree of compression for sample texts.